Rinaldi Calabria Axe Review and Chopping
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- čas přidán 4. 03. 2019
- Available at: www.baryonyxknife.com/rinaldi....
in this video I compare a rinaldi calabria axe with a stock condition (except final sharpening of the edge and a different handle) versus some heavily modified and more expensive German axes. Overall the rinaldi 1.3kg performed better than the ochsenkopf harzer 1.1kg and helko werk Tasmanian with a 1.8kg head in dead, dry fir. This is due to the head design, thinner, flatter geometry
Nice. I hope this video helps the Rinaldi company to ship their axes abroad. I tried to buy one from them to ship it to Spain, but they referred me to ebay, whose shipping is ridiculous. Actually the Rinaldis are quite cheap in Italy, but they just don't like to ship abroad. I hope videos like this make them open their ship abroad more easily.
This video made me very happy because I sell Rinaldi axes (in the Czech Republic, I'm Italian but live in the Czech Republic). They may not have luxury finishes, but the steel is excellent - spring steel, precisely 55Si7 - and they know how to work it well. I really like the Calabria model and regularly use a 700g version with an 80cm handle, an excellent versatile axe capable of handling various tasks.
Yeah all the price you pay goes into the things that matter rather than aesthetics
I think rinaldi has one of the best steels out there when it comes to axes. There is lots of talk coming from knive enthusiasts about edge retention but when it comes to work axes i think this is actually a hinderance. What you should be aiming for is a steel that is very very tough, which allows you to grind it thinner. Rinaldi uses some kind of silicone-manganese spring steel. These alloys make the steel very tough while providimg it with higher surface hardness than in the core. I think this is the reason why rinaldi can grind them that thin and still aim for an HRC of around 58. the cutting edges and geometry these take is insane. Also still being workable by file is the KO criterium and they fullfill this as well. Taking into account the price in europe (at least here in germany) I think these are the best axes you can buy for bushcraft - where you cut mostly hard dead wood - regardless of price!
Yeah they really do have users in mind when making these.
Regardless of what anyone’s opinion is. The Ridaldi axes are fantastic tools and work as well or better then other designs. I own several axes. Several different brands including Gränsfors Bruks axes made by Lenard Petersen and Lars Enander. The two best forgers in the world. I have been felling, crafting, throwing and anything else you can do with aces, hatchets and tomahawks since I was a kid. I have even won several competitions. I am 6’,2” 200 pounds and 59 years old. I want to encourage you to add a Rinaldi to your collection. I have the cadore, Trento and a few others. It is a different feel, Cut very fast and very deep. The thin profile blade makes you feel as though they will break. I have hit every wood and have carved every wood, both hard and soft woods, with a Rinaldi. They are fabulous. My final recommendation is that you go no further than Benjamin Bouchard from Baryonyx knife Co. He is a sage, a wealth of information, the cheapest place you can buy these access from an edge that he put on them is unparalleled. Happy holidays everybody and stay safe
Rnaldi e molto buona e una delle più vendute .. ci sono tantissimi modelli per ogni tipo di lavoro .. bellissimo video .
My dads from Calabria and goes back to visit occasionally. He’s brought back a Rinaldi head of various sizes for my brothers and myself. I love them!
A breath of fresh air Ben. A well presented video and a good test of cutting ability. Really good to see a young man who knows how to use an axe. Happy to subscribe.
Good evening Ben, thank you very much for your axes' honest reviews and technical explanations about skills and tricks. I find your videos absolutely valuable and trustable because based on field experience. I've suscribed happily!
I live in Northern Italy and absurdly I do not own Rinaldi's axes, only their billhooks (great tools!). I was planning to buy a Trento or Cadore (don't know if you had the chance to try these patterns or what you think about), both 1.3 Kg., mainly for falling and more other purposes; but after your explanations about Calabria's functionality and qualities I was convinced to get it. Incredibly it was not so easy to find, quite hard actually! Thanks for your great work, keep on! 💪💪
Good point about hickory being overhyped. Have made more than a few of my own handles and i've found that white oak outpreforms it most of the time. Had many more hickory handles break than oak ones. Lots of woods out there that can work as well as hickory, but the main stream cult its created has some very strong opinions!
very nice channel glad I found ya
Ben, I commend you guys for doing the cordwood challenge. I never did it before. I had a balsam fir taken down last Wednesday. It was near the powerlines and it was starting to split at the trunk. Quite scary. Anyway, instead of getting the chainsaw out in 15 degree weather, I got my Cold Steel Trail Boss axe out. I limbed and bucked a good 20 foot portion that landed in the driveway. I split the rounds too. I loved it. Very fun and a great workout, slept great that night, haha! I limb and buck 2 or 3 full face cord a year for campfires out back. What I split is flat rounds from the saw. It was a little different having another log as a back stop to split axe cut rounds. I feel very safe and confident with an axe. I'll wait until spring to get the chainsaws out, to get the rest that's buried in the snow. We have a good 3 feet of snow up here in Woodgate, NY USA. I won't fully melt until the end of April!
there is something quite addictive about chopping wood eh?
Keep the videos comin' Ben!
Love when people dump on Rinaldis and have a big circlejerk on a forum without any one of them actually picking up and using one
Especially speed wobble nonsense lol
@@benscottwoodchopper Some peoples wrists might not be strong enough?
Not sure if you guys cares but if you're bored like me during the covid times you can watch all of the new series on InstaFlixxer. Been streaming with my gf for the last months :)
@Warren Ricardo yup, been watching on instaflixxer for years myself :)
Brilliant video. loving your channel. you're slowly but surely convincing me to give rinaldi a go. How do they do splitting?
the wedged profiled ones are decent enough for splitting but of course their main intended use is chopping
Damn fine video and excellent channel...just discovered you today.
I have the Calabria Heavy Duty open in a tab on my browser... just laying in wait for me to stumble over it after I've had a few pints of ale.... that always seems to do the trick when buying coveted items. The only thing holding me back is the fact that I have so much work to do, almost finished my 2 ricks for the cordwood challenge, but the past 3 weeks have been a rollercoaster of snow, rain, freeze and thaw cycles... The ground just plain f***ing sucks! If spring ever gets here, or if the ground ever firms up, I have some more testing to do with a few more axes.
Not sure the lack of a poll will bother me. I'm fairly used tom my Basque axe, and my recently acquired Siberian Toporsib Бобр (Bobr) axe has hardly any poll at all with a noticeable forward bias, and I really like the way it chops for being such a small axe.
If you like the basque axe then you will like this I am sure. The thing I find really cool about this axe is I have seen almost identical roman axes in museums. It chops better than you would think just looking at it
Pound for pound the Toporsib Bobr is a very aggressive chopper (Bobr=Beaver in English)!
It haas a Beech haft, I slimmed it down a lot
YAY you have a good camera now!!!!!!!
Great review! That Rinaldi bites deep! The yellow axe was a bit shoddy
Yay for the two finger handle flex test. I might have to pick up that rinaldi. They actually offered to send me some axes to test. They also allegedly make mid sizes of American dayton type patterns. I feel very doubtful that I could happily adapt to one of those after using more balanced axes all my life, but I should definitely give it a shot. So, when that rinaldi was obviously sticking a lot more than the other two axes, do you think that is due to friction on the flat sides? That seems like an obvious assumption on the surface, but I think sticking is much more complicated and could have to do with everthing from the shape not breaking chips, the curvature of the bit and of course what is actually going on at the edge. Also, how deep the axe is cutting. At some point you have to weigh any extra cutting power against the extra time, frustration and effort of extraction.
Rinaldi don't really make any american style axes, I think you said before it was Prandi who offered to send some axes to you and they make quite a lot of american styles? The Rinaldi was a bit stickier than the other two axes but it appears worse because by that stage the log was so small it was moving around a lot. Normally it isn't such an issue, Id say it has a slight increase in stickiness over a typical axe such as a council tool. Balance wise at this weight i don't think its too bad to swing, 4-5lb axes with no poll are a bit trickier.
@@benscottwoodchopper Shows you how much time I spend shopping and paying attention to the market lol. Yeah, it was the other Italian axe company that ends with an i
It took way too long to find but they have a website and that make a bunch of interesting stuff www.flli-rinaldi.it/axe/
@@juver890 Thanks. I was looking at them this morning.
I asked Rinaldi today about this axe and they told me that they do not intend to make more of it because they sell so little of the Calabria 1.3kg. I'm so sad, another pattern lost...
BROTHER! Your mods on the Helko and Oxhead are outstanding. It's easy to tell you really know axes and give a damn. WELL DONE SIR
Its just trial and error really, finding things that could be improved every time i go chopping
anyone know where to get one? Baryonyx hasn't had stock in almost a whole year.
For the kind of wood I need to chop, I’ve found I’m a little under-axed with my current vintage boys axe. I’m gonna stick it out and finish this hickory tree I’m working on now, but it’s kicking my butt. Still fun, though.
I like that Harz pattern Ochsenkopf a lot, and I think 2.5 lbs might be a nice upgrade for me (pretty sure my axe is close to 2 than 2.25). However, that’s a crazy expensive axe to buy in the states.
I had pretty much made my mind up that I was gonna bite the bullet and spend the $120 on a Basque when they came available. But my impulsive and cheap nature took over and I scored an old plumb rockaway on eBay. No sooner than I did, I got the email the Basques were in stock. Grrrr.
I’m gonna have less than $50 invested in this vintage head and handle. But if I figure any value on the time I will have invested (head needs lots of love and handle needs lots of thinning), the cost of the Basque probably stacks up pretty favorably.
Ah, well. Still gonna be fun to see how I adapt to the larger axe and how the weight/speed tradeoff works out. Roughly 3.5 lbs and going on a 32 inch halft. Actually gonna aim to hang it down on the shoulder and closer to 30.
3.5 on 32 is a great size. For me I find it crazy how much you guys have to spend to get any german/swedish axes over there
You can buy a prandi “German style” axe for $70 or $80 on eBay I think. Looks like sort of an intriguing clone of an Ochsenkopf. Might be an option.
None of this needs to be this complicated. If council would just sell their Jersey on a 30 or 32...problem solved.
@@nateb8245 Yeah I was thinking that, council tool wouldn't need to change anything about their manufacturing, just get some shorter handles. I am interested in prandi axes and will probably get one at some point to test out
Technical question: When the Ochsenkopf is laid on a flat surface, where does the bit touch?
the bit is almost lying flush with the surface. I filed flat so that I was almost scraping the paint off the head near the eye till the bevels met. Then I took a 250 grit stone and sharpened for about 5 minutes at a steeper angle to form a microbevel.
Thought about your question a bit more and now realise what you meant. The heel of the axe to the about a third of the blade touches the ground
Would you recommend the Calabria over the American Boys as a pack axe, just all around working tool?
The 700 gram calabria is better than the american boys axe for splitting so if that is a requirement then yes though it is not as wide bitted. The calabria in this video is the 1300 gram version
We're can you buy rinaldi axes in the UK?
You need to get some Log Dogs to hold the logs why’ll your bucking would make your life easier when extracting a stuck axe. It’s strange how different country’s have different axe options problems. I Australia it’s cheaper to get a second hand Tasmanian Pattern Hytest and fix it then to buy anything new but they screw us on the price off everything down here. Good review too Mate.
I actually ordered some log dogs but they are still to arrive. I think you guys in Australia have the poorest selection of axes available. Europe is the best with dozens of good makers still going and lots of interesting designs.
Where do you get the ochsenkopf double bit replacement handle from?
from gedore tools uk
I believe the steel used by the Rinaldis is slightly harder than most other axes. Baryonyx lists it at 58 Rockwell C. Others are often between 50 & 55 RC. I do know that it gives a 'ring" to the blade on some hits, and the edge seems very durable. I don't know if it would chip if it accidentally hit a hidden rock, but 58 is not excessively hard for a knife blade. You almost have to use these to appreciate how it perfoms better than one might anticipate.
I havent had any chipping but wetterlings ans gransfors list 59 rockwell
Where did you but the no.5 rinaldi Calabria head, i cant find any online anywhere
They stopped making this pattern unfirtunately
I like the council tool jersey
HB sells an Atran model that’s 3.5 lbs on 32 inch handle. $114 on amazon right now.
I think if you look around and willing to buy/ship from a candian seller, you can get an Agdor for $100ish.
Atran looks to be the thin cheeked Swedish profile. I like the idea of some convexity and would probably opt for the Basque if I was going to spend more than $100.
That opinion is based on very limited data. But my double bit is flat cheeked and tends to stick pretty badly.
I can get those hults bruks for £40 here, great axes, one of my most reccomended
HB must be keeping the price point here in the US to keep their brand image “premium” and competing with Gransfors and such. Crazy there’s such a price difference for the same axe.
Maybe you should look into becoming an exporter, Ben!
Ben, look for the Husqvarna axes. They are commissioned and made by Hults Bruk. They are hand forged like the Hults Bruk just not finished like them. You’ll
Love them. Very affordable
yeah here you can get the cheaper hultafors made by hults bruk, one of my top recommended axes.
@@benscottwoodchopper that’s coo. I’m in Georgia in the US. They are difficult to get, but the Husqvarna’s here are still pretty much an unknown
@@TheGuitarRoom the only thing i dont like about the husqvarnas is the head design, ive tried a few of the patterns and found they arent great
I can see that. Their hatchet has worked really well for me and holds an edge. Their Swedish felling axe is almost exactly the replica of the Swedish forest axe. Have you tried either of those. Their carpenters axe is very awkward
@@TheGuitarRoom i think the swedish forest axes are a tad too light and small edged, i much prefer the rinaldi axes for a light axe. They arent bad but not optimal either imho
Honestly at first if you just want an axe try to find one at a flea market and restore it and handle it that will take time but that way it’ll be a decently low price just takes some time to get it back up and running and eventually Ik it’s alot of money but once you buy a more expensive axe you will not regret it they cut with ease the quality is just top notch and that’s really the best thing to do if you want a good solid axe and by that I mean hultafors, Helko Werk, maybe even gransfors but I most definitely prefer Helko Werk or Hultafors
Here is one opinion and perspective on the Rinaldi as it differs from other axe styles and feels. The word “feel” applies here. Think of hitting someone with a baseball bat or cutting through them with a sword. I don’t need to be graphic, it’s just an analogy. This ace design was born out of the sword era. Yielding this style and this patterned axe “feels” more like slicing then it “feels” like chopping. And this is true. So it is an acquired feel and touch. Because the axe heads are lighter You can I need to go through your target a little faster. However you will find that you will slice much deeper and cleaner with this patterned blade. That has its drawbacks as well as it will be very hard to get the ax back out after certain hits. Specially if you swing hard and fast. The heavier axe heads and more traditional styles that have weight to them, Will also cut deeply and clean especially if you can swing them fast and hard. However they “feel” Like a chop and not a slice. Anyone with culinary experience knows the uniquely different kinesthetic feels between a butchers chopping knife, a chefs knife and a slicing knife. The same with these axes. For a thinner profile, a more slicing type of feel, the Rinaldi is the best out there for the money. Gränsfors Bruks (Lars Enander) was making axes in this style before the pandemic, but the were over $500.00. Go grab a Rinaldi, think slicing, swing hard and you’ll love it. I’m not a rep, just an enthusiast and a great big guitarist musician nerd. 😊
My theory on the design of these axes versus American is the suze of trees and the use of coppicing czcams.com/video/WME3aChOuJI/video.html
What model# is this calabria?
Great video!
330 1.3kg
With such a thin grind it appears to stick an awful lot compared to something like your tazzy. Looks tiring! Do you find this to be an issue with the rinaldi?
the rinaldi will cut a lot of woods that a tassmanian pattern just bounces off but is a little more sticky. the issue is this wood was very short and light which makes any axe appear more sticky than it actually is
@@benscottwoodchopper Okay, thank you
This axe of rinaldi is the model calabiria?
Yes 1300
@@benscottwoodchopper thanks 🙏
what is this handle of rinaldi 1.3kg?
Its a Basque handle I put on, very simple to make your own for it though
@@benscottwoodchopper thank you , i will ask you about rinaldi and basque in future .
@@benscottwoodchopper about basque handle , is it 60cm or 65cm or more ? and is it carved or straight ?
@@GO-uh3pd The one in this video is 75cm they are straight handles
@@benscottwoodchopper thank you very much
U just fidged one that looks a lot like it
I gotta know who’s using an axe to carve with. I’ve heard several guys on CZcams mention axes not performing well for carving, and I’m thinking “no shit, use a friggin knife.”
I use an axe to carve with, so does pretty much everyone ive seen. Axe is for removing material quickly and knife for detail
What do you mean by “carving”? If you mean knocking of bark or working up a wedge real quick, I’ll grant you that Ive done that with an axe, but I wouldn’t call that carving.
I just picture an old guy sitting in a chair with a hatchet frustratingly trying to widdle a toy for his grandchild-seems ludicrous to me. Personally ive never seen somebody do what I would call carving with an axe anywhere but CZcams. And for that they all say the Gransfors is best.
@@KevinsDisobedience i make spoons with my hatchet
Really? Like rough it out? I don’t doubt that you do. I just don’t see the reason for it.
But then I’m not really into the whole bushcraft scene; in fact, I just learned the word a few years ago, though I’ve been wild camping my entire life. Some of these guys on CZcams act like we haven’t been using knives and axes for decades before they arrived on the scene, and anybody that I’ve known who’s spent real time in the bush has junk for gear, but they get the job done anyway. You, Stephen, and Dave Whipple are about the only guys on here that seem to be speaking my language. Thanks for your content.
@@KevinsDisobedience here is a good example of what an axe is used for when carving czcams.com/video/eTXen997QRM/video.html
Why do you say the rinaldi performed better than the helko? The helko did 16 cuts, and the Rinaldi...(I stopped counting after 30...I think close to 50). Seemed the Helko was much better suited to this particular task.
The helko took way more than 16 swings even to make the first notch, also is 500grams heavier than the rinaldi
@@benscottwoodchopper My mistake. I was watching you buck just the second side and thinking it was the whole cut. The real numbers, I think, are 44 for Rinaldi and 50 for Helko (though the helko seemed to stick less), and 67 for the ochsenkopf.
@@Abbbb225 Yeah the helko didnt stick as much but barely cut in for a lot of strikes, also by the time i cut with the rinaldi the log was so small it moved around a lot when I tried to pull it out
CT make all sizes
Only recently have they released a 32" 3.5lb axe, before they only had 36" handles