Thor's Stormbreaker Axe
Nov 18, 2020 19:35:21 GMT
Post by tommyh on Nov 18, 2020 19:35:21 GMT
Introduction
This is my first review, and it's one that I'm certain you have never seen before. No better way to start than a bang.
I won't say I cried when Thor's Mjolnir was destroyed in the early scenes of Thor: Ragnarok, but I was pretty sad to see it go. Mjolnir is iconic, both from its Norse history, but also more recently, from the immensely popular Avengers movies. The destruction of that weapon, then, gave Marvel a great opportunity, but also a great burden, when it came to replacement. But Marvel, as they almost always do, rose to the challenge.
This is Stormbreaker.
From the second I saw its debut in Avengers: Infinity War, I knew I wanted one. The problem was that no one makes a functional replica of the axe-hammer. So I started looking at getting one custom-made. I reached out to a few smiths that expressed interest in doing custom work, but no one wanted to make it. I put it on the back burner for a year or two, but I always kept an eye open, and threw out a few inquiries here and there to see if someone was willing to make it. Finally, I found someone who was.
Disclaimer
I purchased this axe from a maker on Etsy called MedievalGodsends. He sells a lot of more traditional viking axes, and when I reached out to him, he was willing to take on the challenge. I paid him $600 total for the axe, which he now advertises for $690 or so. The only reason I got a discount (according to what he's told me) is that he did not realize how much material it was going to take. If I were to order another one, I would be paying full price. I have no relationship with the seller.
Historical Overview/Accuracy
A perfect representation of what Vikings carried back in the day. Ha. No, but with regard to screen accuracy, this is not the most flawless representation of Thor's new weapon. For one thing, it's about 25% too small in every dimension. That's probably for the best, as will be later discussed, but it's just not the right size, and that's worth noting. It still has tremendous presence; you feel like you should be able to cut the head off a purple giant with some pretty rocks on his hand. Another point of error is just overall design. The blade should be longer, there should be more decoration on the head, and the handle is nowhere near accurate. But, as a matter of artistic interpretation, it works. No one I've shown it to has drawn issue with the fact that it's not a perfect replica.
Construction
First, the head. Needless to say, the head is hollow. it's made from a series of steel plates, about 4mm thick, all welded together to make one giant piece. It's still colossally heavy, but much more usable than it would be otherwise. The blade itself is made by sandwiching the sharp edge between two "cover" plates, and the eye of the axe is just a piece of steel pipe that everything is welded to.
The head being hollow lends to a unique issue that I discovered pretty quickly: Something was stuck in the head of the axe. I found that incredibly irritating. Here I am, trying to feel like the god of thunder, but when I swing my axe I sound like one of Santa's reindeer. It irritated me to the point where I drilled a hole in the head, spend about a week blowing compressed air into the thing until I finally blew out the small piece of metal that was rattling around, and took it to a local welder to have it TIG welded shut. There's still the smallest of rattles from something I was unable to get out, but it's so quiet that I can only hear it when I'm deliberately looking for it.
The handle is some unknown hardwood, carved to look like a tree branch (or a Groot arm) and wrapped in leather. The leather was a nice touch: even though the movie axe has no leather, I think it fits well in this application and gives the handle a little extra pop.
This is a properly hung axe: it uses three wooden wedges to secure it in place. With that being said, the head was not fit the tightest to the handle. The seller is located in Ukraine (iirc) and when it got here a couple months back, it was solid. Over time, as the wood has dried out, the fit has loosened. In order to remedy this, I filled the gaps that opened up between the head and the handle with epoxy. In retrospect, I probably should have made and fitted some wooden wedges, but hindsight is 20/20. The head's not going anywhere now, and hopefully it remains that way.
First Impressions
This is exactly what I was looking for in a Stormbreaker replica. It's big, it's cool, it's heavy. It came with an odd finish: some areas were exposed metal, some had what looked like a chemical blue, and some had a matte green paint. It was very strange. After I noticed that the steel was picking up rust easily, I went ahead and buffed it all with some steel wool and coated it in a clear lacquer. That's solved the rusting issue, and it's toned down some of the strange color combinations.
Keep in mind: this is a fantasy design. it's not meant to be practical. It's a hammer poll hatchet taken to its logical extreme, and then some. I knew when I commissioned it that it was not a practical weapon. It's just a prop replica that happens to be useable in a pinch as a real axe.
The leather wrap also was loose in places. I epoxied it down, and haven't had any issues sense. I don't know if it was loose when it was applied, or if the climate shift affected it, but the leather isn't going anywhere anymore.
Stats and Handling
Length of handle: 37.5 inches
Length of head (edge to hammer):14.5 inches
Length of edge: 9 inches
Dimensions of hammer face: 5x5.5 inches
Weight: 9 lbs.
Point of Balance (measured from the bottom of the head down the shaft): -0.5 inches (Yes, it's negative. The head is so heavy that the point of balance is still on it.)
Handling? Ha. You "handle" this axe in about the same way I imagine you might "handle" a lassoed bull. You point it in a direction, swing, and do your best to stop it before it imbeds itself in the ground all the way up to the handle. Which it will do, by the way, with zero effort on your part. This isn't a fighting axe. Frankly, it's closer to an anvil on a stick than a woodcutter's axe. You won't be swinging it around like Thor does.
Testing
I've done some woodcutting with this axe, and it's honestly not very good. It can chop, but the pseudo-langets can hit the wood and stop it from splitting well. The hammer is, well, a hammer. It hits hard and it breaks things. As any good hammer should. The edge is pretty dull. It'll cut fruit, but a baseball bat would probably do just as well against a water bottle. But again, this is a fantasy design. It's everything a fighting axe shouldn't be. I have no intention to really put this axe through its paces. I might touch up the edge on a leather strop to get it sharper, but there's really no need. It's a display piece first and foremost, and that's how I intend it to stay.
Conclusion
This axe isn't for everyone. It's not for history buffs, and it probably isn't for the average Marvel fan either. It ranks negative on the historical accuracy scale, and it's probably far more dangerous than a Marvel fan would expect from a piece of memorabilia. It's a pretty rubbish weapon, and fails as a useable tool as well. The price is also pretty steep, especially considering that it's more of an artist's interpretation than a true replica. But it makes me happy, and at the end of the day, that's the biggest reason behind why we buy this stuff. So if you're like me, and you want a replica of a cool movie prop, but you want it to be functional and "useable" as well, then I wholeheartedly recommend buying one. It had its small problems, but it may very well be the coolest thing I own. I haven't regretted buying it for a second.
This is my first review, and it's one that I'm certain you have never seen before. No better way to start than a bang.
I won't say I cried when Thor's Mjolnir was destroyed in the early scenes of Thor: Ragnarok, but I was pretty sad to see it go. Mjolnir is iconic, both from its Norse history, but also more recently, from the immensely popular Avengers movies. The destruction of that weapon, then, gave Marvel a great opportunity, but also a great burden, when it came to replacement. But Marvel, as they almost always do, rose to the challenge.
This is Stormbreaker.
From the second I saw its debut in Avengers: Infinity War, I knew I wanted one. The problem was that no one makes a functional replica of the axe-hammer. So I started looking at getting one custom-made. I reached out to a few smiths that expressed interest in doing custom work, but no one wanted to make it. I put it on the back burner for a year or two, but I always kept an eye open, and threw out a few inquiries here and there to see if someone was willing to make it. Finally, I found someone who was.
Disclaimer
I purchased this axe from a maker on Etsy called MedievalGodsends. He sells a lot of more traditional viking axes, and when I reached out to him, he was willing to take on the challenge. I paid him $600 total for the axe, which he now advertises for $690 or so. The only reason I got a discount (according to what he's told me) is that he did not realize how much material it was going to take. If I were to order another one, I would be paying full price. I have no relationship with the seller.
Historical Overview/Accuracy
A perfect representation of what Vikings carried back in the day. Ha. No, but with regard to screen accuracy, this is not the most flawless representation of Thor's new weapon. For one thing, it's about 25% too small in every dimension. That's probably for the best, as will be later discussed, but it's just not the right size, and that's worth noting. It still has tremendous presence; you feel like you should be able to cut the head off a purple giant with some pretty rocks on his hand. Another point of error is just overall design. The blade should be longer, there should be more decoration on the head, and the handle is nowhere near accurate. But, as a matter of artistic interpretation, it works. No one I've shown it to has drawn issue with the fact that it's not a perfect replica.
Construction
First, the head. Needless to say, the head is hollow. it's made from a series of steel plates, about 4mm thick, all welded together to make one giant piece. It's still colossally heavy, but much more usable than it would be otherwise. The blade itself is made by sandwiching the sharp edge between two "cover" plates, and the eye of the axe is just a piece of steel pipe that everything is welded to.
The head being hollow lends to a unique issue that I discovered pretty quickly: Something was stuck in the head of the axe. I found that incredibly irritating. Here I am, trying to feel like the god of thunder, but when I swing my axe I sound like one of Santa's reindeer. It irritated me to the point where I drilled a hole in the head, spend about a week blowing compressed air into the thing until I finally blew out the small piece of metal that was rattling around, and took it to a local welder to have it TIG welded shut. There's still the smallest of rattles from something I was unable to get out, but it's so quiet that I can only hear it when I'm deliberately looking for it.
The handle is some unknown hardwood, carved to look like a tree branch (or a Groot arm) and wrapped in leather. The leather was a nice touch: even though the movie axe has no leather, I think it fits well in this application and gives the handle a little extra pop.
This is a properly hung axe: it uses three wooden wedges to secure it in place. With that being said, the head was not fit the tightest to the handle. The seller is located in Ukraine (iirc) and when it got here a couple months back, it was solid. Over time, as the wood has dried out, the fit has loosened. In order to remedy this, I filled the gaps that opened up between the head and the handle with epoxy. In retrospect, I probably should have made and fitted some wooden wedges, but hindsight is 20/20. The head's not going anywhere now, and hopefully it remains that way.
First Impressions
This is exactly what I was looking for in a Stormbreaker replica. It's big, it's cool, it's heavy. It came with an odd finish: some areas were exposed metal, some had what looked like a chemical blue, and some had a matte green paint. It was very strange. After I noticed that the steel was picking up rust easily, I went ahead and buffed it all with some steel wool and coated it in a clear lacquer. That's solved the rusting issue, and it's toned down some of the strange color combinations.
Keep in mind: this is a fantasy design. it's not meant to be practical. It's a hammer poll hatchet taken to its logical extreme, and then some. I knew when I commissioned it that it was not a practical weapon. It's just a prop replica that happens to be useable in a pinch as a real axe.
The leather wrap also was loose in places. I epoxied it down, and haven't had any issues sense. I don't know if it was loose when it was applied, or if the climate shift affected it, but the leather isn't going anywhere anymore.
Stats and Handling
Length of handle: 37.5 inches
Length of head (edge to hammer):14.5 inches
Length of edge: 9 inches
Dimensions of hammer face: 5x5.5 inches
Weight: 9 lbs.
Point of Balance (measured from the bottom of the head down the shaft): -0.5 inches (Yes, it's negative. The head is so heavy that the point of balance is still on it.)
Handling? Ha. You "handle" this axe in about the same way I imagine you might "handle" a lassoed bull. You point it in a direction, swing, and do your best to stop it before it imbeds itself in the ground all the way up to the handle. Which it will do, by the way, with zero effort on your part. This isn't a fighting axe. Frankly, it's closer to an anvil on a stick than a woodcutter's axe. You won't be swinging it around like Thor does.
Testing
I've done some woodcutting with this axe, and it's honestly not very good. It can chop, but the pseudo-langets can hit the wood and stop it from splitting well. The hammer is, well, a hammer. It hits hard and it breaks things. As any good hammer should. The edge is pretty dull. It'll cut fruit, but a baseball bat would probably do just as well against a water bottle. But again, this is a fantasy design. It's everything a fighting axe shouldn't be. I have no intention to really put this axe through its paces. I might touch up the edge on a leather strop to get it sharper, but there's really no need. It's a display piece first and foremost, and that's how I intend it to stay.
Conclusion
This axe isn't for everyone. It's not for history buffs, and it probably isn't for the average Marvel fan either. It ranks negative on the historical accuracy scale, and it's probably far more dangerous than a Marvel fan would expect from a piece of memorabilia. It's a pretty rubbish weapon, and fails as a useable tool as well. The price is also pretty steep, especially considering that it's more of an artist's interpretation than a true replica. But it makes me happy, and at the end of the day, that's the biggest reason behind why we buy this stuff. So if you're like me, and you want a replica of a cool movie prop, but you want it to be functional and "useable" as well, then I wholeheartedly recommend buying one. It had its small problems, but it may very well be the coolest thing I own. I haven't regretted buying it for a second.