I received a very rusty old axe head as a gift, in order to attempt refurbishing it. It had been used as a door stopper. After a lot of work with wet sandpaper some markings became visible: One side is stamped “08/1¾” and the other with “Hults bruk”. It had a lot of mushrooming which I removed with a file. I did not sand out all the battle scars as I think they give the axe character and patina.
After a bit of shopping I found a rather expensive but beautiful dark hickory handle from Hultafors that fit pretty well. The edge was decent but had some chips in it. Got most of the chips out with a Tormek, the edge became shaving sharp.
Took it for a trip in the forest yesterday and it performed very well. It easily slices through one inch thick branches with one stroke. This fairly light axe head balances beautifully on the 65 cm handle, making it easy to go where I want it to go. I am glad i did not put it on a short handle like I originally intended. The edge showed no signs of dulling even after two hours of chopping in fairly dry resinous pinewood. This has been my first successful axe restoration.

Are you able to identify the model and possibly age of this axe? Also I wonder what the number code means.

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