Battle Axe Restoration - Crazy Bulgarian Bearded Axe

Hello Luca Nate, here at the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel and today we are restoring a

battle

axe. Welcome to another episode of Outdoor Boys and today we have an amazing Ax

restoration

video for you. Look at this, have you ever seen anything like this before? That's a cool ax, isn't it? Nate. Now, this is a

bearded

ax from Bulgaria and I was told it was a

battle

axe. Whether that's true or not, I have no way of knowing, but this thing is amazing and apart from being very rusty. and it's missing a handle, it's in good shape, this is the coolest ax I've ever seen and I'm really excited to restore it, so let's get started, shall we?

Nate, okay, the first thing we need to do is remove the rust. ax head and as much as I like a shiny, mirror polished ax head, I don't think that's the best look for this project. I think leaving the weathered and pitted texture on the metal will make it look really cool so I just want to remove the rust but not alter the metal so that rules out using abrasives and instead I'm going to try this product called vapor oxide that was recommended to me by some viewers. I tried vinegar and coke. electrolysis and many other things, but this is the first time I use this so I hope it doesn't completely dissolve my ax and ruin it.

We're going to try this, so we'll put this in a five gallon bucket and let it sit for a couple of hours. Well, it's been about five hours. Let's look at this and see how it goes. Yes, the rust is just falling off. It's actually quite impressive. It is much better than Coca-Cola or vinegar. Yeah, that's like. shiny steel back here this is really impressive guys this really got the rust off there's just a few spots that are still rusty I'm going to put it this side down to soak in that steam rust a little better and let it sit overnight and we'll see what it happens let it sit overnight for about 12 hours in the solution and the rust just falls off look at that because wiping it off with your finger it's actually not much of a shame this metal is really smooth there's just a little bit of roughness to it some places, you can see the seam right there where it was welded, they just took this out here and folded it over their Forge, welded it right there and that's how they form the eye.

For the most part, on the bare metal, there are still some rust spots, but that worked great in just 12 hours, so it's definitely much better than what we call our vinegar. However, I'm curious as to when I can remove some of these stains without messing it up. the finish yeah well we got the rust off and it looks pretty good we still have all the character and age so let's move on if the handle goes on and I have a piece of African mahogany here well guys I'm not . very far with this handle and I already fatally ruined it when I drew that line with marker to cut it.

I drew the line wrong with marker and now it's too thin on the head so the wood is now too small for the eye of the ax so I need to start over, anything, are you helping dad? Yeah, you're pretending to fish, ha ha ha, sure buddy, did you catch me right? It was much better than this time, so I hope I don't ruin this. Well, it's going to be a little complicated because this eye is not exactly symmetrical. You can see here that it's a little low on this side of the eye, but we'll carve it out as best we can and hopefully it will fit perfectly.

We were doing pretty well on this mango until it started raining on me. I'm starting to get a little wet now so I'll leave this for now and as soon as we get a little drier weather we'll get to work. On this again, the rain will stop if I only have a few hours before I have to drop the kids off, so let's start with that. Well organized, I have the ax placed there, it is very comfortable, very happy with how it is done. far away, but it's raining and the sun is setting, so we'll leave it for today.

I'm going to pick this up a little bit. Well guys, I left this project about two months ago and we've been very busy. A two and a half thousand mile road trip where we filmed fishing videos and all kinds of stuff all over the south and we just got back from doing it. Here are some cool videos if you haven't seen them yet and I'm about to take them. We're going on another big trip, so I want to finish this ax before we go and you can see here that just sitting there, the moisture in the air has caused some rust, so we need to go and finish this handle, get it all.

Ready, remove the rust, which will not be difficult and then we will have to treat it so that it does not rust again. Let's get started, it looks pretty good, okay, let's sand it. Well, that looks nice. Very nice, pretty, soft and durable, but I think I'm going to put some ornamentation on this day. Well, you can see what I'm doing. I'm using this chisel to go ahead and put these scale patterns on. Now I'm going to Baja and do this right. I'm not really sure how much I'm going to make. It has scales there. Now I'm just going to touch them up a little.

Alright. I have the fish scale pattern carved with the exact knife. Now let's go and I want to add a little bit of shadow, so look at this, nice and warm. I loaded it up too much and had to remove too much material to get to it, so it ruined the effect a little bit. It still looks great, but you can't tell anymore that they were supposed to be fish scales. I could go ahead and char the rest. I like the way it looks nice we have this little piece of African mahogany here we need to turn it into a wedge so there we go so I need to get some rust off the ax so I'm going to go ahead and stick it in in this bag and I'll put some of this steam oxide in it.

Well, this is where I'm supposed to put my wedge, but as you can see, it's very tight, it's just that the accuracy of the fit has made it a little too tight, maybe we'll try to get the wedge in. and see what happens, well, that ax head is there very tight, well, there you go guys, there is the finished product, see the dragon scales or fish scales on the side, they didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, but they still look pretty . cool, very very beefy, sturdy handle, that thing won't break anytime soon, it's thick, it's just not what it was designed for, but man it's

crazy

, this thing is amazing, it looks so cool and never I had seen something like this, this ax is so unique, but I really wondered if it is a battle ax or not, it seems very unwieldy for real combat, but it looks cool whatever it is and I'm not one hundred percent sure Let it be from Bulgaria, that's where I bought it, you know, I guess it's from the east.

European of some sort, but who knows, if you know if you've seen one of these before, please share info in the comments. I would love to know more about it. The handle turned out fine, it's not my favorite handle. So far the sanding removed too much detail and now it looks like a cool texture pattern, but the best thing about doing it yourself is that, when I have more time in the future, I can remove this handle and take another piece of wood and try it again, no big deal anyway thanks for watching guys we hope you enjoyed this video if you want to see more great videos from the outdoor boys youtube channel don't forget to click subscribe and check out our playlist below. i have a whole ax

restoration

tool restoration playlist tons of great cool ax videos thanks for watching guys thanks for watching we hope you enjoyed this video if you want to see more great videos from the outdoor voice youtube channel no Come click subscribe, we post new videos every week and don't forget to hit the bell button so you get notified when we post another great video.