One of the most versatile and important survival tools you can have, and a really handy tool generally, is the humble axe.
A good axe can help you drop a tree and easily process it into firewood or building materials as long as you can supply the muscle. But what if you don’t have an axe, break it, or just lose yours? Good preppers will always improvise, and sometimes that means repurposing another tool.
If you have an old shovel collecting dust or a spare you don’t mind sacrificing, you can easily turn it into a serviceable axe with no forging and no blacksmithing kit required. Read on, and I’ll tell you what you need to know…
Tools Needed
Shovel, metal: This is the primary, sacrificial component of our improvised axe. It has to be metal; plastic will not work here for obvious reasons! Ideally, use a flat spade-style shovel. Less “belly” is ideal for this purpose.
Angle Grinder with cutoff wheel: This tool will make quick work of the task at hand. But you have to be careful because these things are dangerous and can be difficult to control. Your angle grinder must have a cut-off wheel installed.
File (optional): Not needed because we can use the angle grinder for pretty much every process, but a mill file can provide better control for cleaning up the cut edges of the shovel and putting an edge on the resulting axe.
Work surface: A good, flat place to work. This could be your workbench, a tree stump, or even just a clear spot on the ground.
Eye Protection: Like I said, angle grinders can be incredibly dangerous. Wear eye protection while cutting, no exceptions. Safety goggles are a must, but a full face shield is better.
That’s all you’ll need. I’ll walk you through the process in the following section.
Instructions
Step 1: Clear your workspace. Wherever you are tackling this project, you don’t want any obstacles that could cause the shovel to slip or snag the cord on the angle grinder. You will need to hold everything steady and conduct the cut safely, so give yourself plenty of room.
Step 2: Locate cut on shovel blade. If you are using a spade, you want to cut the end off where the taper ends and the sides become straight or nearly so.
At the same time, you want the edges of the axe head to be between 5 and 6 inches tall, no taller. It’s helpful to make a line mark with chalk, a scribe, a nail, or any other tool so you have a guide to follow.
Take your time and do this right, because there’s no going back once you start to cut. If in doubt, cut a little higher because you can always take more off, but you can’t put it back on!
Step 3: Cut off end of shovel with angle grinder. Bracing the shovel with one hand, your foot, clamps, or a bench vise, fire up your angle grinder and carefully make your cut on the mark you placed in the previous step.
Go slowly and don’t force the angle grinder, or it might bind, or, disastrously, the disc could break. Make sure you have your eye protection on before you begin!
Step 4: Clean up cut edge. It’s highly likely there will be some burrs, slivers, and jagged curls of metal left on the shovel after you complete the cut.
Use the flat of the angle grinder disc to file these away and gently round over the edges. If you have a hand file, you can use that for the same purpose.
Step 5: Cut off step or flange if present. Some shovels, like the one you see in these pictures, have a protruding peg that is used as a footrest during digging. It won’t be used anymore and will actually get in the way when swinging our new axe. Using the angle grinder as we did before, cut this part off and then clean up the edges.
Once done, you should have a roughly rectangular or square axe head as shown.
Step 6: Grind edges into axe blade. Using your angle grinder or a file, make a 25-degree edge on both ends of the axe head. This comes out to about 12 to 13 degrees on either side of the edge. Take your time, hold steady, and do it right, working in short stretches so you don’t overheat the steel and cause it to lose temper.
Doing this freehand and correctly requires some practice, so get that practice in now before you have to make an axe like this for real!
Step 7: Remove burrs from edges if present. Carefully inspect both cutting edges on the axe head. If you notice any burrs or rolling of the edge, make light passes with your angle grinder or hand file to remove them.
Step 8: Refine edge if desired. This rough-and-ready edge you created will let you get to chopping right away, but you can improve it by sharpening with various stones or other devices you would use for sharpening knives and garden tools.
Step 9: Done! Your improvised axe is finished and ready for use. It doesn’t look like much, but as you can see in this picture, it is more than capable of biting deeply into wood
Tips and Improvements
- A shovel is not made to stand up to the same kind of forces as an axe in use. Adding some overstrike protection in the form of leather wrappings around the connection to the handle can be a worthwhile upgrade to extend its life.
- Speaking of handles, the best kind of handle for an axe like this is a straight piece of hickory or some other hardwood. If it has a horizontal loop or other attachment opposite the head, cut it off or remove it. Fiberglass also works reasonably well, but many of these are long and should be shortened for comfort.
Tom Marlowe practically grew up with a gun in his hand, and has held all kinds of jobs in the gun industry: range safety, sales, instruction and consulting, Tom has the experience to help civilian shooters figure out what will work best for them.
While this is a useful endeavour, would it not have been easier to sharpen the edges only, thereby making it like a special forces trench shovel ? Just saying.
You say to use a cut-off blade on the grinder. The pictures show you using a grinding wheel???
Sheldon