I thought I had brought this up before now and it turns out I had, back on page 110 of our conversation where I had posted op a series of pictures of a single final pass made on a stem of sweet chestnut with this axe with the edge reconditioned just after getting my grubby hands on it from out of Sweden. The edge was shot, either completely worn down or having lost its tempering. The smid had a good look at it and with the expert eye determined the steel there had only the potential for a moderate hardness were it to be re-tempered so I decided to have it re-steeled with a suitable steel, the Uddeholm with high carbon content but without the other metal additions which interfere with the sharpening potential. It's not the only work Bernard has carried out for me on old axes. At the same time he took the peculiar axe known to the locals here as "bandhacke" only this one's a single beveled version and reconditioned it, keeping the original steel bit which turned out being damast steel bizarrely, so that was an unexpected revelation, which you see here below.
all this work not before he had already done another favored bandhack, this time replacing the worthless bit with one of exceptional quality because in that instance not only did he use this same high carbon content Swedish steel for the insert but incased it with unused one hundred year-old axel stock with a beautiful grain pattern visible to the trained eye. Well this axe needles to say is most treasured and a tool also of the highest quality in use and has transformed my whole approach to getting the logs squared up.