Marbles making wooden handled safety axes again

[willysjeep134]

Marble Arms, after about three years of making their "high tech" plastic handled safety axe, has just made a run of No 5 and No 6 safety axes, and their double bit hunter's belt axe as well, with wooden handles and carbon steel heads. Unfortunately, they had them made in CHINA! I was very angry when i found this out.

 On the one hand I really wanted one of the safety axes and didn't want to pay $150 for one of the ones they made in 1998, but on the other hand it was made in CHINA. I eventually resigned myself to the fact that I am a part of a global economy, and that Marbles hasn't made the axes in the US for a few years, so nobody really lost their job to outsourcing. Marbles doesn't hire too many people, but I never hear about people being fired because of the recession. I ordered a No 6 safety axe from ragweed forge, and we'll see how good I still feel about myself when it arrives. Still, if given the option I will buy USA made products. I hate myself for every Chinese item I buy, but it is a necisairy evil I suppose in this day and age.

[Joel]

I agree with ya, but even when I was willing to spend the money for a custom axe I didn't really want to wait 8 months.  I mean, I'm not all that much into instant gratification, but still that was a bit longer than I wanted to wait for an axe design I've never used before.  The Marble's quality control is present in my Hunter's Axe....I surely can't fault the workmanship....Hopefully should be the same for the safety axe.  But I do miss the great  products WE used to make.

[willysjeep134]

For a while they made some of the old safety and belt axes somewhere in Gladstone, I believe around 1999. They wanted pretty astronomical prices for them though. Marbles has that problem. Before, they could charge what ever they wanted for a knife or axe because if somebody was purchasing a Marbles it was because it was a Marbles, and not for the price. Apparently the management now feels a lower price will make their products more attractive. Instead of cutting costs in their domestic factories, or just not making a gigantic profit margin on all of their products, they decided to outsource. I think that for a while people will still buy Marbles on brand loyalty, like I did, but eventually they will loose their traditional market and possibly only gain a small niche of the economy market. If fuel prices get high enough maybe shipping products from China will become less attractive. Maybe they might try selling their American made products at less of a profit. I bet sales would really pick up then.

[willysjeep134]

Just got home last weekend and got to check out the axe. It came in the mial on Tuesday, but I wasn't home until wednsday night. The finish seemed to be pretty good on this axe. The wooden handel was inletted pretty deep to hold the jack-knife type guard mechanism. I was a little worried about the strenght of the handle, given the amount of wood removed, but it seems pretty solid. The two planes of the blade did not meet in an edge. There was a 1/32 inch flat where the edge should have been. After a few seconds with a file the edge was there. I must have spent two hours with various whet stones to get the blade where I was comfortable with it. Sharpening an axe head has always seemed more akward than a knife blade to me. I can never seem to keep a steady angle long enough to form a good edge. I started on a coarse oxide stone, moved on to my pink medium stone, then on to a little Smiths Arkansas soft pocket stone. I finally got just a little portion of the edge sharp enough to shave hair, but I wish I could have gotten it all in that shape. My sharpening technique is probably more suspect than the quality of the steel. I also took a few moments with the medium stone to polish off the CHINA marking stamped behind the eye.

I did a little trimming with the axe and all seems to be in order. I had a pile of brush from a maple top. I whacked the limbs off of the main branches, then used a saw to make them into some small campfire wood. Over all, I am pleased with the hatchet. I am going to spend some quality time on it with an arkansas stone and see if I can't get the whole thing a little sharper. Only real complaint is the country of origin, but for the price I guess it's still a pretty good tool.

[Joel]

Glad you like it.  My Hunter's axe came nice and sharp with those straight convex edges.  I did put it on the belt grinder, both to thin one edge(which probably doesn't need it all that much) and to put a more hair splittin' edge on them.  Grinder surely does save time and, along with a buffing wheel, puts on one heck of an edge.   Took about 15 minutes.   I think I read where the safety axe is made from 5160...assume it's the same with the hunter's.  Only thing I didn't really like is the colour of the handle and the finish..which is some kind of poly varnish.  I like darker wood, and varnish finishes don't really hold up too well....they'd been better off just leaving the wood bare.  I stripped the finish off, and dyed the wood with a dark brown oil dye I use on my sheaths.  Used Watco's Teak Oil, which is a marine oil finish that penetrates deep into wood and doesn't leave a noticeable surface thickness, and then waxed it with Minwax.  Axe is now like I want it  to be.....handle came out a nice reddish brown colour.  Done everything from chopping up kindling and taking out a couple of small 3" trees that needed thinned, to skinning some squirrels.  Handles it all. All in all, it performs bettre than my 'hawk with not much increase in weight.

[Joel]

Grrrrrrrrr!! My newest Smokey Mountain Knife Works catalogs lists both models of the Marble's safety axe, a nice belt axe and my hunter's axe for between $17.00 and $19.50.  All due to "cosmetic blemishes" that the catalog says can be removed with a bit of elbow grease.  Figures.  About half tempted to buy a spare...just might.