Restoring a Valuable Vintage Collins Legitimus Axe

Hey guys, welcome back to another craft, my name is Dustin and today in the shop we are going to restore this antique axe. Now this ax is one I found at a garage sale. I was there, I was looking for some old woodworking tools and as an ax collector like myself, I always ask the question when I'm in a place like that. I asked the guy if you have any access for sale and sure enough, he walks into his garage and brings beautiful axes. This was one of them, this is a Collins Legitimists Connecticut pattern ax that is on the market right now.

It is a highly sought after axe. People really love Collins Legitimists. There is reason, so there is an excellent axe. You know they made them. Collins had access for a long time. They are really beautiful and the legitimacy of their main lines is also unlike anything in collecting. You have these waves of things that rise and fall in popularity and as of now, rightly so, the Connecticut pattern, which is a Connecticut pattern, is very popular and axe. collecting, so I saw him come out, he actually brought out two different patterns from Connecticut, the other was a Kelly red warrior and this one was the Genesis pillars and they are both beautiful axes, this one has handles in a little better condition. others, so I really thought it would be cool to do a complete restoration using this original handle.

Now I love this handle too. It is very long, not very long, but it is a very thin handle, very flexible and that is also a step back from the access of previous years. from the 30's, 40's or 50's they were much thinner than they are now when you buy an ax handle at the hardware store or if you buy an ax it will be these huge thick handles that most people who buy new axes and hatchets regularly. They will take their time to shape them. I actually made another video on how to use a store bought handle and make it more comfortable.

Now this handle is in excellent condition. The head is in excellent condition. Everything is very good at the moment. This is how I want to take everything apart, clean everything, put everything back together, you can put it in usable condition because I'm very excited to use this ax again if we're thinking about value, you know, the values ​​of things go up and right now, the Collins legitimists are a highly sought after head and also the Connecticut pattern is a highly sought after pattern so those two things combined increase the value of this ax to me and all collectors, I would say in this condition this head with this handle and this style you're looking for if I wanted to resell this now you probably know I could ask for 150 or $200 so this is a highly valued ax and it's one of the highest in my collection so I'm I'm very excited of taking it apart, cleaning everything, putting it back together and using it, so let's go ahead and start here, we'll go ahead and hold these hacks in my vise now and I'm just going to put this and you.

You can see I have these wooden jaws that I built for my vise. You want to make sure that whenever you do a restoration or if you're working on an axe, all you really want to do is protect that metal that you don't want. It messes up the metal, so make sure you put something soft on it that you can use. They make soft jaws. They have plastic jaws and rubber jaws, like I said these are just a pair of wooden jaws I made to protect my ax that way. It doesn't mess up that surface and we go ahead and grab a couple of tools and we'll see if we can get this metal cap off so it was early with most axes if I was removing this and I really didn't.

I care about the handle, I would just lower it from the top with a piece of wood. I really don't want to mess up the top of the handle, so I'm taking my time and pulling it from the bottom. of the stuff that sells a little bit so just pulling down the eyes of the ax are hourglass shaped so they will be the narrowest in the middle so once you get past that middle point you should come out a a little easier, okay? Guys, I wanted to stop real quick and show you that this is my very controversial screwdriver chisel.

Now there have been a lot of comments on other videos where I'm using this like oh my god I can't believe I'm using this screwdriver as a chisel I'll never watch any of your videos again relax guys. I made this screwdriver specifically for this, so I was using it, it obviously used to be a good screwdriver, but I was using it at one point and the tip broke and broke. I turned it off so I grounded it. I thought this is perfect. It's a small chisel. I can use it specifically to hit things and pull things out using a lever.

It's just for that reason that the shaft on this is pretty soft, which I also like because and If I'm really proud of prying something and it doesn't want to come out, it will bend before it damages what I'm working on. I have other cold chisels that I use and I have a lot of nice screwdrivers and I don't use this screwdriver specifically to use it as a little chisel, a little wedge so I can hammer it in, so everyone who is going crazy over this little chisel screwdriver, that's why the one I'm using, to wrap the scale with the sun looks like it only weighs a hair under three and a quarter pounds, so it's like a perfectly sized head, so now that I was able to get this out of my hand, I was able see it very well and this thing is in almost perfect condition for its age and the pole is beautiful and perfect, there are just a few little marks, you know, here, a little bit of fungal growth here on the bottom, almost nothing, so I'm not going to do anything as horrified as I will. leave it exactly the same on the top and bottom of the bit.

I mean, there's just a little bit of warping here or someone hit it with something themselves on the top, just a little bit, but overall. I mean this thing is in gorgeous condition, it's going to be a beautiful restoration, so we won't leave most of it this way. I'm going to take it to the wire wheel and use some wd-40. and clean it just make sure you clean everything, clean all the dirt, but I'll leave a patina and we'll get ready to resharpen it. I'm just looking for little bits of rust or pitting, anything like that that I need to get out. get rid of I want to make sure all that stuff goes away.

The other thing about this wire wheel is that it can be quite aggressive, so I'm not really putting any pressure on it. I'm just letting the wire wheel do the work. I also don't want to build up heat on the edge, so again, just gentler pressure towards the bleed and if I need to go back to a place like this where I saw some pitting and there was some rust, you know? I'd rather go over it a few more times rather than put too much pressure in there, you know, increase the pressure, which would actually take off the patina, but it could also ruin the temper if you get too hot, but mostly you know.

I want to leave this patina, so I'm slowly removing enough to clean the surface, but not to remove all this nice age and patina, so I'm going to go ahead and remove the rest of my tool because I want to. To be able to look down and use this slack part of the belt, the grind on all axes will always be a convex grind, meaning they are an arc on the edge, so it's not a flat straight grind all the way to the edge. you have this kind of soft arc towards the eyes and that gives you a little bit more strength behind that front edge.

If you look at the video above where I turned it into an ax with a circular saw blade, I did the same type of sharpening, so I'm taking this off to rest now. I'm going to work on a few different progressions, starting with 150, moving up to 320, maybe 400, before moving on to my little 1 for 30 and doing my shopping belt to shave and get that edge. and sharpened so that we are very sharp on the edge. I just finished with the 150 grit sandpaper tape and I got all the way to the edge of the wire and you probably saw it on the camera, but you can see it this small.

A thin line of metal that's right on the edge, right on that sharp edge of the bit, and that's called a wire edge and that's basically a buildup of metal as you bring it all the way down while you're polishing to the edge. what are you building. Place this little piece of metal right on the edge that you'll be able to flip back and forth as you sharpen both sides and you also know how to polish this using the convex the way I'm doing it. with the bezel down, all of these things are things I learned from watching other people online.

I've seen Liam Hoffman do a great series of videos on how to sharpen and make axes. Wrangler Star has all kinds of great videos on how to make axes and you know. there's a great podcast, the legitimist podcast is a really good thing, you know, talking about axes and talking about all kinds of things like that Chris Killinger Oh, on Facebook, you know the ax junkies Facebook page, if you're interested in doing something like this or any type of things that you are learning find those resources online look for things join Facebook groups look for videos that you know use this content to your advantage because we are all posting these things here for you to learn and something to learn and it is the way I learned, I mean, I watch a lot of videos and a lot of trial and error, use your resources and you know, have fun when you do these things.

You can see here in the head that they are still part of the old wedge. inside the cut so I'm going to have to remove it and there's the shelf that developed and that's because the head would come loose every time it was used or move around when it was loose it kept hitting and pushing what we call a ninja shelf. So that's where they had to sit and it hasn't clicked in, it's just sitting on the shelf so it's not a tight fit, so I'm going to go ahead and take it out, take out the old shim and clean it up a little bit. a little bit and then I'm going to start putting the head back on and that looks really good so I'm going to go ahead and just give us a little bit of pound to see where it hits the bottom of the eye and then Take it back and keep working down but because it's It will fit very well.

Many of you know that there is a lot more room here to lower this if I need to, more than I thought there was going to be. all the way down on the shoulders, but I still have plenty of room for this to fit and there's still some hanging over the top, so this is going to look really nice and you can see, you know, with the sandpaper just gradually. work this backwards. I didn't want to just make a hard edge where I'm cut and where I'm sanding. I want to blend that color because that will help it blend back in once I'm done with all of this.

So it looks natural again. Here you can see the end of the handle. It's got a little flat spot here now that may be where someone was hammering to hang this ax at some point or maybe there was a little flat spot for I'm not exactly sure, but I want a little more because when I hang this and it's upside down, I'm worried that if I hit it too hard it will break or break the handle, whichever can happen. so I'm going to grind it down and maybe about an eighth of an inch, maybe a quarter of an inch, just to give me a little bit of a wider area here, a flat place to be able to hammer, even though I'm hanging it and I just had Actually, before we go any further, I want to bevel the inside of the bottom of this.

I think it's very sharp and I think just when I was putting it down a moment ago I saw it was hitting that edge and it's curly wood, I mean it's a very sharp bottom, it's in almost perfect condition so I'm just going to take a little chainsaw file to bevel this edge, the level of which actually helps it wedge down and better instead of hitting and cutting the edge of the wood. look, I've got a little bit of curl here a little bit of curl in the back a little bit of curl on the side but no bounce back which is key.

I don't want this to bounce and open up again, so you don't want to hit it too many times, I gave it three good hits, I sat it down nice, I have a little curl but it didn't bounce, so it's done. I'm going to go ahead and prepare a shim and we'll snap it into place. I finished my wedge and I really like to customize each of my wedges so they fit really well so this one is going in there is a slight crack and where the old curved cut stops so I want this to follow that crack and go in and it feels inside.

There I also rounded the entire front and just a little bit on the back, it will sit in all those nooks and crannies at the top of the eye and also the last thing I did before was chamfer the top. edge of this so when I hit it it doesn't break the wedge let me put a little bit of glue here and then we'll send it home and you can see I've given the back a turn I took this off just to get rid of that sharp edge and I've beveled the edge here now I like a chamfer and I like a Christian fur, but this is the rest of the spawn, so it has a nice rounded edge, so I'm just going to mimic that with some sandpaper, just roll this up a little.

I'm going to leave it a little crispy on the inside but roll it up on the outside so it's a smooth transition so it matches the older handle here and we cut it to about a little bit more than a quarter of ainch proud that they will give me a little room to sand it, get it nice and clean before I do a smooth champ around the top, okay guys we are all hung and done, now it's time to Grease so I'll use oil of boiled linseed, which I think is the best oil for any tool handles, but especially ax handles, now you can see there's a little bit of splintering here where there was excessive hitting, but I tested all these spots where the splinter was and All of this wood is really secure, there's nothing that's peeling yet. so I'm not too worried about it, I'm very excited, these hacks turned out beautiful, beautiful, I love it, I'm super excited, I've been waiting for a few years to hang this up, restore it and have a chance. to use it, I've never used it, I'm excited to try it and of course it's night time, it's dark so I can't try it now, but tomorrow we're going to my parents' house to celebrate my brother's party. birthday and watch the Ravens game with my family and we'll take it there, maybe light a fire and take it for a spin, so the next day, rubbing my parents' house right on the edge of a cornfield, we have a nice big tree here, so let's go ahead and try this to see how it cuts Oh, honey, oh man, holy cow, it's sharp, this ax cuts like an amulet, it's so nice, even better than what thought.

I mean, just the geometry of this is so perfect for cutting wood. I think I could probably get in four or five more hits and I think I can get through this limb. Alright guys, as you can see, this thing is cutting like a charm. I can't even say it. How excited I am to now have this in my ax arsenal. I mean all the axes I collect. I use them and am very excited to use this one. It's just beautiful. The legitimist pattern of this column. The edge geometry is beautiful. It's sharp. Short. Wonderfully, it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do and I'm excited to be able to use it and also return it to the store and hang it with the rest of its brothers and sisters in my ax collection, so thank you all.

So much to see, it's been a fun couple of days. If you visit us on Instagram at Craft Art, you can follow us there and I like to post photos all the time a couple times a week, if not almost every week. Day of the things I'm doing in this store and also, if you're feeling inspired and want to know, find out another way to contribute to the channel, go out and check this out on Patreon as well. I thought about the craftsmanship and again, that's just a great way to give back to the channel and, you know, give us a chance to continue making these videos and bringing you this content like we do, so this has been a really fun few days.

Now I'm really excited to have this Kahlan legitimist Connecticut. The pattern acts, you know, restored this beautiful

vintage

handle and headstock to its former glory and I use them as much as I can, so thank you all so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.