Rydbom Heritage S.A. Wetterlings 63

A traditional shape in Scandinavian axe design, the collared axe was orginally a function driven design element. Having forests of birch nearby to utilize as handle material, the countries of the North Men found a way to work around the relative weakness of that birch wood. The collar helps spread shock and impact forces during use, and greatly decreased the stress on the handles and subsequent breakage. Had they lived amongst forests of Hickory or Ash trees, you'd probably have never seen a collared axe design.

This particular axe was located and shipped in from Southern Sweden, where it was cleaned, inspected and refinished here in the KA shop. One of a few manufactured by S.A Wetterlings that Dave has come across. Originally founded in 1880 by Sven Axel Wetterling... and still running today! Located in Storvik Sweden, the forge began modernizing in 1914 with a spring power hammer that was still in use as late as 2014! This axe would have been hammered on that hammer... and I would approximate a manufacture time frame between 1930 to 1960 based upon personal experience and observations of similarity between other known pieces. What I can tell you however is that this is a well made piece, showing nice clean lamination of harder high carbon steel into the cutting edge and a great uniform shape. Those laminiation lines through the cheeks were highlighted during the refinishing process by high polishing the forward most half and satin wire stripping the rest for a nice two tone effect. At the heel of the edge near the collar there is a small void were you can see that harder high carbon insert that was pattern welded in under the force of that famous power hammer. 

The edge was put on using a slack belt for added strength in the cutting edge geometry, and is currently hair popping sharp. A hand fabricated leather snap sheath protects that edge, and is a bit more unique than the usual in having made use of red thread for a little color pop.