Granite Hollow Forge
Hudson Valley, New York — forging since 2009. Two smiths, one coal forge, and every No. 01 Felling Axe we have ever sold.
The forge sits at the end of a gravel road with a woodpile out front that doubles as the test bench. Inside there are two smiths, one coal fire, and no machine that wasn't already old when they bought it. Every felling axe in our catalog starts here as bar stock and leaves as a numbered head, hammered, ground, and hung by the same pair of hands.
The hanging is the part they will not let anyone else do. The haft is rived, never sawn, so the grain runs unbroken from poll to knob; the kerf is cut to two-thirds the depth of the eye; the wedge goes in once, with linseed oil, and is not expected back.
A wedge is not a repair. It is the last third of the joint, and it is driven once.
Twelve axes a week is the ceiling, and it is not a supply problem — it is the number of axes two people can make without letting one through unfinished. We asked once what it would take to double it. The answer was two more people and nine years, which is how long the junior smith has been the junior smith.
At the bench this quarter
Run 7 of the felling axe — one hundred heads, hung through the summer. About a third are on their handles now, and the last forty finished units of the previous run reached Crosby Street in June.