Sharp and skilled: Bluff Park craftsman finds new calling in axe restoration

Chris Richardson restores the head of an axe as he works on a piece for a customer in Tacoma, Washington, in his garage. (Photo by Erin Nelson)

Reposted from the Hoover Sun
written by Jon Anderson.

Chris Richardson likes to chop wood.

But the inexpensive fiberglass axes you can find at most home improvement stores just weren’t getting the job done well enough for him. He much preferred the quality of older steel axes.

He fondly recalled his grandfather splitting wood with an old double-bit axe, and he told his mother if they ever found that old axe, he wanted it. Well, they did find it, and Richardson restored it about six years ago.

That restoration job stirred a passion. “I kind of caught the bug,” Richardson said.

For the next four to five years, he found himself collecting and restoring old axes and similar tools as a hobby — all for himself to use.

What the 35-year-old Bluff Park resident didn’t know was that his obsession for old axes was about to turn into a business venture that would spread nationwide.

A friend, Jacob Hall, asked him to restore an axe that belonged to his dad as a Father’s Day gift. The axe had originally belonged to Hall’s great, great grandfather and was at least 100 years old. It was really run down, dull and not in working order by any means, he said.

Richardson restored the head, put a new handle on it and polished it, and Hall gave it to his dad. “He couldn’t have been more excited,” Hall said.

His dad now has it proudly displayed in his insurance office in Albertville, and it’s quite the conversation piece, Hall said. “It’s pretty cool to see an old tool like that brought back to life,” he said. “It’s rare to find a gift that actually means something and sparks emotions.”

BUDDING INTEREST

From there, word began to spread about Richardson’s talent, and other people started asking him to restore axes for them as well. Some people supplied the axes, but Richardson also had started finding old axes himself, restoring them and selling them.

Someone suggested Mark’s Outdoors might be interested in selling the vintage tools, and the store invited Richardson to bring some to a knife show in summer of 2018. He took five axes the first day and sold four of them, and sold three more the second day. That was enough for Mark’s to start carrying them in the store, and Richardson said he has kept Mark’s stocked for the past two years.

“That opened my eyes that this may be more than a hobby,” Richardson said.

Another customer recommended he enter the Made in the South competition put on by Garden & Gun magazine. The competition draws 800 to 1,000 entries each year in six categories: food, drink, home, crafts, outdoors and style.

Richardson paid the $75 entry fee and said he didn’t think he’d ever hear anything back. But one day, he got a call and was informed he was one of four finalists in the outdoors division and invited to participate in the Made in the South weekend in Charleston, where he went and sold more axes.

Before the December 2018/January 2019 edition of the magazine came out, magazine officials warned Richardson he needed to be ready for an onslaught of orders.

“I had no idea what being in that magazine would do for this as a business, Richardson said. “Overnight, I started getting orders from Alaska, Guam, Maine, Vermont, Hawaii.

“That was the point at which this was no longer a hobby,” he said. “It was no longer just a side business — something I did to supplement income.”

Up to that point, Richardson had been working a regular job in advertising for 11 years. He had felt a call to go into church ministry but didn’t see how that could work financially since he was the sole breadwinner for a family with three kids.

He had asked God if He wanted him to go into the ministry to provide a way for that to happen, and the growth of the axe restoration business — Richardson Axeworks — was the answer. He was able to quit his job in the advertising field and begin work as the connections minister at Homewood Church of Christ.

CONNECTING WITH HISTORY

Business is booming. Richardson has fulfilled orders from at least 29 states and Canada. Most months, he has close to 20 orders. But between late October and Christmas of last year, he restored and sold 100 axes as people gave them as Christmas gifts, giving him more than 300 sales for the year.

Richardson doesn’t restore just axes. He also does old hatchets, hammers, ditch bank blades and vintage cleavers, which he said are the “axe of the kitchen.” He’ll restore any vintage handmade tool, he said.

Cleavers, however, are harder to restore, he said. They typically are made of more delicate metals and often have handles made out of exotic wood, he said.

The cost for his tools varies, but on average, for people who supply their own heads and want a new handle, the price is about $200 for a restored hatchet, about $300 for a single-bit axe and about $350 for a double-bit or maul axe. Restoration of the head alone (without a handle) will cost about $100.

If Richardson supplies the vintage head, the cost is typically around $150 to $200 for hatchets, $200 to $250 for single-bit axes and $250 to $300 for double-bit or maul axes.

Yes, people can buy axes for less, but Richardson said he is selling more than just axes. He is selling axes with stories, especially those that come with a family history.

A lot of people have vivid memories of their dad or grandfather using these tools, and they’re willing to invest in bringing those memories back to life, he said.

“People want to feel a connection to their history or our history,” he said. “This country — it was built on the backs of these tools, so it’s cool to connect with it.”

For some people, they don’t have to have a close, personal tie to the tool. “There are certain types of people who see something beautiful in a rugged tool that also has a story to it,” Richardson said.

FUNCTIONAL ART

David Whitlock is one of those people. Whitlock, a businessman who splits his time between Ocean City, Maryland, and Tacoma, Washington, has bought nine or 10 axes or hatchets from Richardson after reading about him in Garden & Gun magazine.

“His work is exquisite,” Whitlock said. “I don’t know all the work that goes into finishing these old axe heads, but they’re all so cool. … Each one is different, and each one has a story.”

For Whitlock, it’s not necessarily about getting a hatchet. “I don’t need another hatchet,” he said. He doesn’t even use them. He puts them all on display next to his fireplace and plans to pass them on to his children. “I just think they’re absolutely beautiful,” he said.

Other people who get Richardson’s restored tools actually use them, such as Justin Peach, the student minister at Homewood Church of Christ.

His wife bought him one of Richardson’s hatchets and one of Richardson’s axes, the latter with his initials burned into it. He keeps the hatchet in his truck and uses it frequently, and he uses the axe to chop wood for his fire pit and fireplace, he said.

“Chris makes his stuff beautiful, but it’s 100% made to work,” Peach said. “It’s made to do its job. It’s just super strong. It’s super sharp.

“It’s a fantastic tool I am blessed to have,” Peach said. “The time and effort and detail he puts into it — he puts his time and energy and love into this. It’s just an awesome passion he has that clearly shows.”

Richardson said it doesn’t matter to him if people buy them for display only, but he does like to see people use his handiwork.

“Even the most expensive piece I’ve ever made, it’s made to be the best axe you’ve ever swung,” he said.

For safety and liability, he always recommends putting a new handle on someone’s axe, but he’s willing to work with the original handle if the person has a special connection to it and it is for display only, he said.

“The worst thing in the world is if this thing [the head] goes flying off,” he said.

VINTAGE TOOL HUNTING

Richardson has a variety of ways he obtains old tools. Most often, he finds them in antique shops when he’s on a road trip, but others come from yard sales and junk shops, he said. He gets a lot of axes in the “world’s longest yard sale,” held each August on a 690-mile stretch along U.S. 127 from Alabama to Michigan.

Sometimes, he’ll get calls from friends when they find one, and they’ll buy it for him.

He also has strategic partners around the country with massive stockpiles of vintage axe heads. That helps a lot when he gets a lot of orders in a short time frame or when a customer is looking for something specific, he said.

There is actually a community of axe collectors out there, but for whatever reason, most of his customers are ordinary folks just looking for a special gift for someone.

He takes part in some arts and craft shows, but “it’s a little up in the air as to whether this is considered art or not,” he said.

He hopes to increase his show appearances to once a month.

It usually takes him three to four weeks to fulfill an order for a fully finished piece, but there is no hard and fast rule, he said. He does all the work himself, including the packaging and billing, he said. All the work is done in the shop in his garage and in his driveway.

‘SUCKER FOR AN OBJECT WITH HISTORY’

Dave DiBenedetto, the editor-in-chief for Garden & Gun magazine, gave Richardson a call after he found the rusted head of a sledgehammer on the beach of a barrier island off the coast of South Carolina.

He could have used it as a rusty doorstop, but he decided to let Richardson take a stab at restoring it instead.

Due to years of saltwater corrosion in low tide and high tide, the axe head was in pretty rough shape, but Richardson was able to bring it back to life, DiBenedetto said.

“It was amazing to see it coming back, and it was beautiful,” he said. “Everything about it is just slick.

“He was able to clean it up but not lose the fact that this was an old working tool,” DiBenedetto said. “It’s in no way a perfect-looking sledgehammer, and that’s what I love about it. … He allows it to tell its story. I’m just a sucker for an object with history. It’s kind of magical.”

Richardson said what began as a hobby has turned into an obsession with the craft and the tools he makes.

“Nothing comes out of this shop that I don’t cringe a little bit because I want to keep it myself,” he said. “It still takes my breath away. It still gives me great joy to do this … This has been deeply fulfilling for me.”

To learn more about Richardson and his work, go to richardsonaxeworks.com.