Truper Alcotana Shovel-Axe with Handle

This tool is truly a work of German craftsmanship and NOT A CHINESE P.O.S. !IT COMES FACTORY SHARP SO BE CAREFUL and it has so heft to it so it really digs in deep when weeding with very little effort. I initially got it for my wife after getting frustrated with the junky versions that she kept buying... “because they are cheaper “ ... when in reality they were nothing but a complete waste of money !I have also shown it to some of my buddies telling them that I will be buying another one to add to my Bush-crafting kit and they all agreed that it was a quality tool and asked me to order them some when I order mine next month.The only thing that would make it better would be a protected sheath for the sharp ends as well as for strapping to a pack , like a mini version of the mining pick from the movie SISU !!! Hahahahaha

A well built tool for gardening, the cutting head is thickly cast steel. Chopping through top sod is easy, use the ax blade to cut through tree roots. This is a top notch manufacturer, I'll check their other tools

Tool is weighty and solid. Needed treatment with a grinder to get the axe side sharp. Serrated mattock should dig well and is sharp. I expect it will serve effectively removing small to medium roots though. Pleased overall.

Very high quality HAND axe / hand trench digger. Good balance, should last many years.

Steel seems solid, after sharpening I have beat this thing to death chopping roots and have hit more than a few rocks and the edge is still somewhat sharp with very little deformation so I very pleased.

Disappointed with the handle. Handle too slippery. Shape not as shown in photo. I ended up wrapping handle first with Gorilla tape to increase diameter then finish with bat grip tape and mostly solved the problem

So, if you stumbled upon this dandy little tool and thought about customizing it like I did then here is my entry. It’s not much, but for me it’s a dandy.The factory handle was fit up nicely on both tools. Removing it was a chore and a half. It may very well be the hardest part of this whole job. On to the fire…I used a gas forge to heat the haftless head to a nice orange. Just enough to make it malleable. It moved quite well under my hammer. It took a few heats to shape the blade and square it up. I also had to drift the eye back to shape due to a misplaced hammer blow. That cost me two extra heats. 😂 Once I annealed the head over night in the cooling forge I was able to grind the mattock teeth down to a more substantial tooth. The factory teeth were nearly sharp and would probably bend or break. I dressed the head and shaped the bit and back to the fire to bang in a bevel and then on to the quench. It actually skated a fairly good file. With enough pressure I could make it bite, but I imagine this is 1060 or 1055 of some sorts.I heated the eye with a mapp torch and watched the colors run. I put a nice edge on it and took it out to test. One inch limbs were nothing to it. I had a wild cherry log about 4” diameter and it cut through it with ease. I’m quite happy.

It's a great tool for gardening, but I had to lay back the axe edge on a belt sander to get it to the point where it would actually bite into wood. Leaving the axe edge blunt would probably be better for chopping roots, but I wanted something that could sever small guava trees.