This Tool Shouldn’t Exist Anymore… But It Does

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Gentlemen, you're not going to believe it, but what I have in my hands is truly a unicorn. I can count on one hand the remaining USAmade forged hand tool companies that still produce in the US. And I don't know how this could be in my 30 years of working with and seeking out USAmade quality hand tools how I overlook this. But there is another. This right here is an official US Forest Service approved Pilaski that is handmade with USA steel in the United States. And I have never heard of it until just now. What I have right here is the Woodward forged Pilaski tool. Now, the Pilaski, some of you may or may not be familiar with it, is the quintessential wildland firefighting tool specifically made for that task. Interesting story.

[00:01:05]This tool was named after Edward Pilaski. He was a United States Forest Service Forest Ranger and wildland firefighter, and he invented this tool.

[00:01:15]He was a true American hero. There was a great fire back in the day. I believe it was around 1910 and he was eluded he was he was leading a group of men a 20-man hand crew that got caught with fire behind them. Now they were at they were in great peril. They were about to all be consumed by the fire. But he bravely led them into an abandoned minehaft and because of that heroic action these men were saved. Now not everybody wanted to stay in the minehaft. The conditions inside were so bad. It was so hot and so filled with smoke. The story goes he had to stand at the entrance with his pistol in hand to prevent his crew from running out and being consumed in the fire. A handful of the guys actually did not trust him, went out and perished. But the men that stayed inside, well, they all survived. They suffered pretty bad burns. Ed Pilaski was never the same after that. He had pretty severe burns as well as he he damaged his lungs and he was always a bit disabled from that.

[00:02:16]But out of that experience came the beloved Pilaski which which I guess carries his namesake. Let's take a look at this. And because I am that guy, I have the official US Forest Service.

[00:02:32]This is the measuring tool that determines whether a Pilaski is proper or not proper. I also have my beloved FSS fire pilaski here that we can measure it up against. So, let's have a look at this and I'll tell you the details. But from my initial impression, this thing right here is a true gem.

[00:02:55]Let's take a close-up look here and I'll give you my impressions.

[00:03:01]The first thing that I noticed was the quality of this sheath. I couldn't when I checked the price I could not believe that this sheath was included. I thought, "No, they know who I am and they had some fancy leather worker custom make this as a night as a nice gesture. This couldn't possibly be the sheath that would come with it." Well, I just went on their website and it is it's a $20 option. And look at this leather work.

[00:03:33]Burnished ends. They've got gussets in there. I mean, it is absolutely exquisite. Look at the makaker mark.

[00:03:40]Look at the embossing.

[00:03:43]Now, this is premium premium topofthe- line leather work. There is no way no way I would I could produce this thing for $20. I could scarcely buy the material for that. I don't even think I could do that. So, that absolutely blew me away. Now, a sheath is important for wildland firefighting. Everything needs to be sheathed from the clouds to shovels to axes because at any time you might be required to put your or to take your tools on aircraft. So, they're not about having these sharp edges and loose tools rumbling around. But that right there was very impressive. You can buy these outright on their site for $30. If you want to add it to the axe or the pilaski, 19 bucks. So, this is not a paid advertisement, gentlemen. This is just giving it to you the way that it is. But look at that leather work. My goodness. I could do a whole video alone on this. It is super super skookum.

[00:04:43]All right. So, what do we have here now?

[00:04:45]We have a drop forged highcarbon a pilaski. Now, what's the difference between drop forging and regular forging? Is one better than the other?

[00:04:54]Well, if you're into artistry and the artisan and the oldw world, you know, look and feel of things, I get it. But I can show you here. Functionally, there's very little difference to be honest with you. Drop forging is a way for mass manufacturing to get consistency. So, what they do is they take a high-carbon steel and they push it through a super mega high-pressure press that punches these out and gets everything uniform and consistent. So, most of the things you're going to buy from large companies are going to be drop forged. Hand forged or traditionally forged is going to look something like this. Not uniform. You can see all of the tool marks on there.

[00:05:37]You can see there's no two alike. All of these are going to be unique and different. And I for one really do appreciate that. There's nothing, I mean, nothing like a handforged tool.

[00:05:47]But this is very labor intensive, not something that can be produced a lot.

[00:05:51]So, is one going to hold an edge better than the other? Not necessarily. It all depends on the hardening of the steel and the quality of the steel. And so, from what my research determined, this here is made from USA steel, high carbon, and it should hold an edge and be just as durable as any forged axe.

[00:06:10]So, just to kind of get that out of the way here, we have the stamping NFES. I believe that stands for National Fire Equipment Service or something like that. And what that's telling us is that this is approved by the US Forest Service to be used in wildland firefighting. It meets all of the measurements. It meets all the criteria.

[00:06:33]I will be the judge of that here in a minute, but it is approved. If they wanted to order them, they could order them. And you can see the beautiful attention to detail, the wood word there, the W with the diamond, their makaker mark. On the other side, you see USA stamped. And the 26, I don't know what that means. It could be the date. Perhaps this one was forged in 2026.

[00:06:59]Here, the way that it's set in the handle is you'll see something maybe you're not familiar with. This is a polymer or a plastic wedge. Now, the Forest Service has really been going to this. I've seen this on a lot of tools.

[00:07:11]Even the official Whoops. The official Pilaski here, the FSS also has the plastic or polymer wedge. Now, is that bad? Is that good? Well, it's it's good.

[00:07:25]It's good because the plastic doesn't shrink. It doesn't change with environmental differences. You take these axes, they're maybe forged in West Virginia, for example, bring them to Arizona, that wood's going to dry up and shrink. So, these plastic wedges are less likely to move because they're completely stable. So, I I take no issue with this. And actually, for a hard use tool that's going to be put through the rigors of wildland firefighting, this is actually kind of the go-to and is preferred. So, shout out to them for that. Also, I love the fact that they didn't run it down flush. I always like to have an axe handle sitting up proud and that's nice. Really nice. But as far as the shape, classic Palaski, really nice forgings. Look how consistent it is. Nice and clean, very smooth. Even you take the, you know, the the gold standard right here. This also is drop forged, but you can see the inconsistencies in the steel. You see the the pits and the and the kind of the porous nature of it. It's not a it's not doesn't affect the function of the tool.

[00:08:30]It's just a uh a cosmetic thing, but this really speaks to the quality of the forging. It is very consistent and very nice. We got the grubbing hoe feature there. And that's what Ed Pilaski, that was his design. So, he took an axe and he welded on this grubbing hoe to have a tool that you could cut and chop work trees as well as roots or flip it around and grub in the ground for rocks and dirts, dirt, and you could keep that nice edge on there. So, this is true to its form. A beautiful hickory handle we have. And you can tell, look, look at the attention to detail.

[00:09:07]They take pride in their work. I found out that Woodward has been forging tools since 1951, I believe. What is that? 150 years. Unbroken line. But right there, deep. It's embossed in there. You can you can feel it. It's not going to rub off. But that is very nice. Grain orientation, well, not my favorite. We like to see grain orientation running this way, not this way. This can have a tendency to delam because the wood is stronger this way. With the striking forces is coming on the ends, it's less likely to split and delaminate. But to be honest, I have never seen that happen. And I'm not going to hold a large MA or a larger manufacturer that's doing production work and to go in there and try to sort each individual handles.

[00:10:00]Now, if I'm paying a premium price, if I'm paying $300 for a hand forged axe, you better believe that I'm going to demand proper orientation of the grain, but I'm not going to ding it for that.

[00:10:12]It's just you get what you get. There's they're running a lot of them and there's just not the time or the just it's just it's unrealistic to demand that. And again, I have not seen a problem. One gripe I have with all these tool companies, please, Woodward, if you're watching this, would you stop varnishing these tools, it's a it's an extra step that you have to pay for.

[00:10:33]It's it's environmentally completely unfriendly. You have to have all those chemicals and it's something that at the at the end user, we have to strip this off because a hand a hand tool with a with a varnished handle is very unhandy to use. It causes blisters and when you get sweaty it gets very very slippery.

[00:10:53]The first thing we do will do before we put this into the firebox is we'll strip off all of that varnish because we do not want that. So please if you're listening stop that process. Grandfor Brooks doesn't do it. Hallbrooks doesn't do it. Eliminate it. You can maybe even drop the price of it $5. You can have a better effect on the environment. It's just not necessary and it's certainly not wanted by people who use the tools.

[00:11:19]It just causes us a lot of extra work.

[00:11:22]All right, so that's the overview. Let's put it on the gauge and see if it meets the US Forest Service standard.

[00:11:31]How we judge if a Pilaski is properly built and maintained is by using an FSS.

[00:11:38]This is a real forest of service hand tool sharpening gauge. These are handmade and provided by the Forest Service. And this right here is a very, very clever little gauge system to check all of your tools and kind of give you a baseline. So, the first thing we're going to check is the angle of the grub hoe. Now, this is important. Grub hose should be filed just like it's done here from the bottom up, not the other way around. And this gauge is for determining that. So, if we flip it right here and put it, this angle, we line this up. This angle will determine whether or not it's filed properly. So, you can see right there, it's a little bit too steep. It needs to be backed up a little bit shallow. You can see probably a little bit of gap behind it, but I don't fault the tool for this. This kind of comes down to personal preference and can easily be sorted out with a file. So, definitely meets the standard right there. Now for the blade, this of course is a production tool, so this is a machine finish. This is obviously not handhed.

[00:12:45]If you want to handh possible by my official merch, the Projo Axe Care Cut. I'll put a link to this if you'd like to order your own. This this just dropped and all USA made. This how this is what you need. You got axes, you need a Pro Ho Care Kit. So right here, this little bevel in here is the perfect dimension for the blade at midlength. So we put that on there like that. And we can see pretty darn close. Pretty darn close.

[00:13:20]Uh, it's a little bit steep. Again, before I would put this into service, what I would do is I would back these edges back. I'll file that back there a little bit, a few more degrees so that that point fits perfectly right there in that val or that little gullet. And then we would have the perfect I guess geometry, the perfect angle for a fire axe. Couple of fun facts. So this right here is a a go no-go. So these tools wear out. For example, if you take my Palaski here, which this has seen many, many years of service, you'll see that it looks identical in every way, but it is significantly shorter than the new one. That's not because it's made different. It's just it's been sharpened to that point. It's been sharpened so many times that it is we've just basically removed the metal. Same thing here for the grub hoe.

[00:14:20]If we match these up on the edges, you can see, look how much longer the new one is. Originally, these two would have been exactly the same. That's just how much material has been filed out of that. So, this gauge, these tools actually wear out. You spend so much time filing them. You file them multiple times a day when you're working on a fire line that this gauge was developed.

[00:14:41]So, if we look right here, we can see we have the nogo or disregard the tool.

[00:14:45]when the tool is worn out is worn out when it reaches this level right here.

[00:14:51]So, we could test that. You take the gauge when you lay it on here, flush it on the end, and do you see right there?

[00:14:59]When this blade goes back, it's sharpened beyond this, it's time for it to be thrown out. So, you can see there's still a lot of life left in this. Here on the back side, also we have the hoe. And we set that on the top. Yeah, right here. I forget. Sometimes I have to reook at that. So, I got the instructions on there. So, for the hoe, we put that on the handle. Let me do it on the top. It's easier for you to see.

[00:15:29]Mash it up against the handle, the eye.

[00:15:32]And we can see here clearly that the hoe still has life left in it.

[00:15:39]So all the way we have another 3/4 of an inch before this is to be considered to be done. So we don't need to worry about the new one. We already know that it's going to meet that criteria and it has um it's well it's got the standard on it. It has the stamp right here which tells me National Fire Service approved.

[00:15:58]So this is a tool that could go right on a fire line and is a legit top of top-of-the-line proper Pilaski USA made.

[00:16:08]So, I was quite tickled to find one of the very last remaining USA tool companies that are producing these quality tools. I mean, it is it's legit.

[00:16:19]It's absolutely legit. And I will be rotating it into the firebox. What I will do uh before it's ready is, like I said, we'll back that edge up and so that meets that it's a little bit thinner. This is a little bit bulky.

[00:16:37]It's a little bit steep. It's not going to bite very good into the wood. It's going to be a durable edge, but I do like them backed up a little bit and correct that angle on that grubbing hoe.

[00:16:47]Strip off that varnish. I'll drill a lanyard hole because leaning these up against the wall will bend the handles.

[00:16:56]So, if you have a if you want to store these things without getting the handles, make them look like a the hind end of a dog's leg. You're going to drill a hole in that, put a lanyard on them, and hang them. Hang them. and the weight of the handle will keep that true and straight. Strip off that varnish and this thing is ready for service. So, just a quick video. I wanted to share that with you. This is not a paid ad. Uh they just said, "Hey, we love your channel. Uh can we send you a Pilaski?"

[00:17:25]I just responded, "Yeah, sure." I wasn't expecting anything. I just thought it would be just another Chinese knockoff.

[00:17:30]Uh to my surprise, it is not. And I looked into the company and it is indeed a proper Pilaski and suitable for any type of use. Now, what's this thing cost? What do you think? USA forged with quality ingredients and that leather sheath.

[00:17:48]99 bucks. And if you want that sheath, just throw another 20 bucks on there.

[00:17:54]120 for a USA made, US Forest Service approved Pilaski. Uh, I mean I I don't know how you can beat that. What are we paying for handforged Grand Forest Brooks axes? Now, are they on the same level? Do we have the artistry? Well, we're not trying to do that here. This is a production tool. This is a tool that needs to go to work. I have no issue, no issue at all with drop forging. This is done properly, as good as it can be. And man, how cool is that?

[00:18:22]Woodward, the Woodward tool company, and they also make axes and several other tools. So, if you're interested in that, you want to see more of their stuff, let me know in the comments. I'll reach out to them. I'm sure I'll send a link to this video to the Woodward Company. It's a small company in West Virginia. Where are they at? They got their town here.

[00:18:42]Wheeling Wheeling, West Virginia, still producing for 150 years USAmade forge tools that are done properly. Who knew?

[00:18:51]Unbelievable. But we'll reach out to them. It's a win-win. you guys get to find quality USAmade tools, which are hard to find, and I get free access. So, I think that that's a a fair tradeoff.

[00:19:02]I'll put a link in the description. Go over there and say hello. Tell them thank you for sending this fine tool.

[00:19:08]Thank you for staying in business and not shipping everything off overseas and just trying to make a profit over quality. Still doing it right. 150 years, man. America might be back. one Pilaski at a time. May God bless you and your families. Please keep us in your prayers and we'll see you guys on the next video.