James grew up on an Ozarks farm where tools like axes and picks were still used in the daily routine and the blades of stockman's pocketknives served their original functions. Receiving his first pocketknife at age four he got it open by himself nearly a year later and spent his formative years wandering the woods with a succession of ever larger knives, a book of matches and a rifle.
A veteran of Vietnam, James also served in Alaska during a stint in the Army, receiving his first intensive culinary training by setting a record for extra KP at Ft. Richardson.
Settling in the Pacific Northwest after his discharge, James crewed on sailing yachts in local races, backpacked hundreds of miles of mountain trails in search of good trout fishing, and occasionally attended college.
His first serious job as a civilian resulted from answering a Seattle Post Intelligencer want ad requesting someone who could lift 120 pounds repeatedly and wasn't afraid of fire. James apprenticed to John Frazier -- the most knowledgeable traditional foundryman in North America at that time -- for the next six years.
Returning to the Ozarks James made his living by growing ginseng on a hand-terraced wooded hillside and selling handmade wood turnery, furniture, sculpture and architectural carvings. James harvested trees from his own land, processing logs into posts and beams and turnery billets with saws, axes, froes and planes. Since many tools he needed were no longer available, James built his own forge from a barbeque grill, a vacuum cleaner and a 55 gallon steel drum, found a chunk of railroad track for his first anvil, and taught himself blacksmithing -- creating his own knives and tools from scrap steel and sweat.
Changing economic pressures eventually forced James back to the restaurant industry in Branson, Missouri, and later to even more success as a maintenance engineer for one of Branson's largest condominium resorts. Finally escaping to Indiana, James now makes his living telling true stories as a freelance writer.
Many people do enjoy splitting wood for the campfire or the wood stove, and the Gransfors Bruks Large Splitting Axe makes that warming chore go well. Ordinary chopping axes work fairly well for some types of wood but just bury themselves in others. This special axe blasts through.
The difference between a chopping axe and a splitting axe is that the splitting axe’s wedge-shaped head drives through the work with continuous force. The short cutting bevel of a chopping axe transmits very little splitting power to the bolt of wood, but the slightly concave sides of the splitting axe open the split wider as the axe goes deeper. As a result, tough woods fly apart.
Gransfors Bruks of Halsinglen, Sweden, celebrated its hundredth year in business in 2002 and still manufactures a full product line of traditional axes plus many improved modern versions. Instead of an assembly line process, each smith at Gransfors Bruks creates an axe from start to finish and stamps it with his signature mark on completion. The company does not embellish axes with unnecessary finishing steps, so you’ll find visible signs of hand workmanship along with the polishing and honing that really matters. In the splitting axe, both faces of the wedge-shaped head show a high degree of polish all the way to the shoulder of the eye. That decreases friction as the axe drives through the bolt of wood and transmits more splitting power with every blow.
See the Shingle Froe for another old-fashioned but very practical wood splitting tool.
James grew up on an Ozarks farm where tools like axes and picks were still used in the daily routine and the blades of stockman's pocketknives served their original functions. Receiving his first pocketknife at age four he got it open by himself nearly a year later and spent his formative years wandering the woods with a succession of ever larger knives, a book of matches and a rifle.
A veteran of Vietnam, James also served in Alaska during a stint in the Army, receiving his first intensive culinary training by setting a record for extra KP at Ft. Richardson.
Settling in the Pacific Northwest after his discharge, James crewed on sailing yachts in local races, backpacked hundreds of miles of mountain trails in search of good trout fishing, and occasionally attended college.
His first serious job as a civilian resulted from answering a Seattle Post Intelligencer want ad requesting someone who could lift 120 pounds repeatedly and wasn't afraid of fire. James apprenticed to John Frazier -- the most knowledgeable traditional foundryman in North America at that time -- for the next six years.
Returning to the Ozarks James made his living by growing ginseng on a hand-terraced wooded hillside and selling handmade wood turnery, furniture, sculpture and architectural carvings. James harvested trees from his own land, processing logs into posts and beams and turnery billets with saws, axes, froes and planes. Since many tools he needed were no longer available, James built his own forge from a barbeque grill, a vacuum cleaner and a 55 gallon steel drum, found a chunk of railroad track for his first anvil, and taught himself blacksmithing -- creating his own knives and tools from scrap steel and sweat.
Changing economic pressures eventually forced James back to the restaurant industry in Branson, Missouri, and later to even more success as a maintenance engineer for one of Branson's largest condominium resorts. Finally escaping to Indiana, James now makes his living telling true stories as a freelance writer.
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Many people do enjoy splitting wood for the campfire or the wood stove, and the Gransfors Bruks Large Splitting Axe makes that warming chore go well. Ordinary chopping axes work fairly well for some types of wood but just bury themselves in others. This special axe blasts through.
