OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

262543 Tom Dugan <tom_dugan@h...> 2017‑06‑23 About all those axes you have stashed in the garage ...
Check out https://tinyurl.com/ybu86tnk


"After a soft opening June 10, Valhalla is accepting both scheduled competitions
and walk-ins at 6781 U.S. Route 30 during the hours of noon to 10 p.m Tuesday
through Saturday. It’s hosting a grand opening next Saturday.


For $20, you can throw as many axes as you want in an hour. Groups of six are
$100 for an hour or $200 for 2½ hours, with $35 for each additional person. Ms.
Metz said they don’t recommend groups larger than six for one-hour events.


“You’re not going to get the full experience,” she said.


The range will also host league nights, in which ax throwers can compete once a
week for eight weeks. At the end, the winner will be crowned the Ax King or
Queen and be awarded $1,000.

...

In Canada, the Backyard Axe Throwing League — or BATL for short — has been
gaining traction since its founding in 2006, growing to more than 1,500 members
by 2016. In the United States as well, indoor ax throwing has garnered a wealth
of recent attention. Urban Axes, a league based in Philadelphia (with plans to
open in Baltimore, Cincinnati and Austin), has recruited between 90 and 120
members since its inception last year, the National Axe Throwing Federation
claims on its website.

..."

etc.


But really, who amongst us hasn't already chucked an ax or two?

-T
262544 galoot@l... 2017‑06‑23 Re: About all those axes you have stashed in the garage ...
Quoting Tom Dugan :

> Check out https://tinyurl.com/ybu86tnk[1]
>
> snip the article about a business providing a venue for axe throwing..

In the SCA there is a martial art called "thrown weapons" with involved 
throwing sharp objects (usually axes and knives but sometimes spears, I 
think atlatl is a separate category) at sections of tree trunk.  Cost 
is usually acquiring some weapons and help to scrounge and transport 
the butts (targets).  Check out your local chapter...  Map to find it 
at http://sca.org/geography/findsca.html

A couple years ago at Pennsic I discovered that axe throwers don't want 
their axes to be _too_ sharp, can't remember why.

Esther
262545 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2017‑06‑23 Re: About all those axes you have stashed in the garage ...
If they are anything like me, I would hit someone.  So a duller axe would just
increase the chances that everyone would leave with the number of appendages
they showed up with - maybe not the same amount of blood, but appendages, yes

Ed Minch
262552 scott grandstaff <scottg@s...> 2017‑06‑24 Re: About all those axes you have stashed in the garage ...
>> A couple years ago at Pennsic I discovered that axe throwers don't want their
axes to be _too_ sharp, can't remember why.

   I don't know for sure. But I'd imagine its because a sharp ax would 
chip much worse on accidental contact with a rock.

       Ax throwing was smokin hot 40 years ago here. In fact logging 
competitions were hot altogether.
  Log dancing (on water), ax chopping races, hand saw races, chain saw 
races, pole climbing and tree topping races.
Much of Bigfoot days revolved around the logging competitions.
    It suddenly died out without a trace even before widespread logging 
generally disappeared.

   Then in the late 90's, mostly because of one popular guy, there was a 
resurgence of ax throwing.
One guy got into it, and pretty soon he had friends, and pretty soon 
after that it spread.
  Before you knew it, ax throwing became part of the Bigfoot Days 
celebration once again.

  This only lasted a few years though. The one guy who started it was 
killed in a logging accident and interest began to wane.

   Sometimes it only takes one.
       yours Scott
262553 Christopher Swingley <cswingle@s...> 2017‑06‑24 Re: About all those axes you have stashed in the garage ...
Scott,

On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 9:49 AM, scott grandstaff  wrote:
> Ax throwing was smokin hot 40 years ago here. In fact logging
> competitions were hot altogether.
> Log dancing (on water), ax chopping races, hand saw races, chain saw races,
> pole climbing and tree topping races.

It's still a popular event around here:

https://www.uaf.edu/snre/news-events/forest-sports/

I've never done it but one of my co-workers won the log rolling
competition a couple years ago.  He was the only competitor who had
spiked logging boots.... Back when I used to fell trees and cut our
firewood with frame and crosscut saws my wife tried to get me to enter
in the crosscut sawing competition, but I always chickened out.

Cheers,

Chris
-- 
Christopher Swingley
Fairbanks, Alaska
http://swingleydev.com/
cswingle@s...
262561 scott grandstaff <scottg@s...> 2017‑06‑25 Re: About all those axes you have stashed in the garage ...
my wife tried to get me to enter
> in the crosscut sawing competition,
After the demise of logging here (3 full time sawmills closed and about 
30 logging crews all moved away),
    at a yard sale, I found a high grade racing saw. A one man saw.
It came it a ridiculously heavy canvas case trimmed in thick leather all 
around. Quite the outfit.

   Well I used to know a man named Crazy Richard.
  Richard earned his name.  Drunk and disorderly much of the time for 
years. Then one day he got tired of that decided to clean up.
  He began to eat and take care of himself and turned into an entirely 
different person. He met a girl and fell in love (a former Playboy 
centerfold) and in time they had a darling baby.
  Well Richard, about 6' 5", decided to take up saw racing. He got 
serious and I eventually gave him my racing saw.

     Sadly within that same year he went back to his former life, lost 
the girl, and went back to sleeping under the bridge for the rest of his 
life. sigh.

  I never did hear what he did with the saw. Richard did have one 
redeeming quality.
He never, ever, brought his trouble to my door.
    When he was drunk I never saw him, unless an accidental meeting on 
the street.   And even then he would politely excuse himself and disappear.

-- 
*******************************
    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html

Recent Bios FAQ