I am flabbergasted.
I didn’t have a sheath for my Boy Scout hatchet as a kid, but the Boy Scout section of the local Penney’s had a leather kit that let me make one. I have been using that same sheath (with many repairs) ever since. And I still use the hatchet, mainly on downed branches in my backyard.
The sheath finally gave up, and can’t be repaired. I don’t like leaving a sharp instrument unsheathed (although I have quite a collection of other axes and hatchets now that I’ve inherited through the years), so I wanted to get a new one. I thought this would be a good time to get some sheaths for all those other axes and hatchets I’ve got, too.
Only nobody sells them.
I tried the hardware stores – Home Depot, Lowes, Ace. Even though the Home Depot website says they sell them, they don’t.
So I tried department stores. Both the Target website and the WalMart website says they have them. But they don’t. Nor does K-mart, or “overstock” stores like Ocean State Job Lot and Christmas Tree Stores.
Sporting goods stores should have them, right? I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods, Eastern Mountain Sports, and REI. No, no, and no.
Surely the Army Surplus store has them, right? They’ve got everything related to cutting tools. Nope. They didn’t even know what I was talking about.
The Boy Scouts. Penney’s doesn’t have a Boy Scout section anymore, but if you look, you can find Boy Scout stores. I found the local one. They had lots of leathercraft, including holsters for LED flashlights. But not for hatchets.
NO??? Even the freakin’ Boy Scouts? To ge5t your “Totin’ Chip” you have to …
…which surely includes keeping the thing sheathed when not in use, right?
How can you keep it sheathed if they won’t sell you a sheath or a kit for one? Not all hatchets and axes, even among those sold by the BSA, come with sheaths. I asked the guy behind the counter, and he told me that they stopped selling them three years ago.
What the heck?
I DID find several internet sites selling sheaths, and I purchased from one of these. I also found sites telling me how to make a sheath, but to do so requires leatherworking tools I don’t have, and am not going to buy.
And, for the record, those websites for Target, WalMart, and elsewhere did NOT say you could only purchase them through the internet. To my mind, that implies that they have them in the store.
I finally did find a couple of sheaths in a store – up at Kittery Trading Post in Kittery, Maine, a place filled with a wide variety of hunting and camping gear. And they only had two of them out.
So what’s the deal? Why isn’t anyone selling these anymore? Most stores selling axes and hatchets in my experience (and I’ve had quite a bit this week) don’t sell them with sheaths. Often they only have an obviously temporary plastic covering, if anything. Does everyone just leave their axe and hatchet blades unprotected? Why did they stop selling them. Why in Baden-Powell’s name did the Boy Scouts of all groups stop making them available? It’s not as if everyone suddenly switched to those newfangled digital hatchets, with internal safeties.
