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Updated: 11 hours ago Made in Maine

Made in Maine: Axe maker in South Portland carves out a niche

Photo / Tim Greenway Dirigo Belt Axe heads cool before returning to the kiln at Brant & Cochran in South Portland.
By Renee Cordes

Next to a concrete lot full of shrink-wrapped boats in the shadows of Bug Light Park in South Portland stands a cobalt-blue concrete building that resembles an abandoned garage. Step inside, and you feel like you’re in a man cave crammed with tools and faded posters from Elvis to Record Store Day. Saucepans filled with wax — used to keep axe heads from rusting — add to the cluttered tool-and-dye machine-shop look.

We’re inside Brant & Cochran LLC, founded in 2015 by brothers Mark and Steve Ferguson with business partner Barry Worthing to make and restore hand-crafted axes. Scents of wood, iron and sawdust permeate the rustic setting.

“Most of these posters are covering holes in the walls,” Mark Ferguson says during a tour of the workshop, the sound of humming machines and metal clanking in the background.

Where tradition meets innovation

Photo / Courtesy of Brant & Cochran LLC
Mark Ferguson is the president and co-founder of Brant & Cochran LLC, a South-Portland based axe maker.

Brant & Cochran, based at Thompson’s Point until early 2017, is named after a former business in Detroit where Leland Ferguson (grandfather of Mark and Steve) restored and sold military-surplus tools after World War II until the 1970s.

Today at the new Brant & Cochran, six employees make 1,500 axes a year for customers from lumberjacks to outdoor enthusiasts in a 5,000-square-foot space where tradition meets innovation under one roof. They also restore about 100 axes a year, fielding requests that come in from all over the country, including some that are scribbled in handwritten notes.

‘Axes tell stories’

As Lela Ferguson, Mark’s daughter, softens steel billets in a gas forge glowing fiery red-orange, colleague Ed Lutjens uses a modern induction machine to do the same thing in a fraction of the time. The machine, part of a recent $200,000 investment in new equipment and expansion, doesn’t emit the same heat that makes the gas forge impossible to use during the summer.

Lutjens, a blacksmith by trade who enjoys getting his hands dirty, says the most important part of his job is “being curious about stuff.”

Curiosity about the lack of good-quality, American-made axes when Steve Ferguson couldn’t find one for his godson is what prompted the brothers to start their business in the first place. One day they hope to make a Hudson Bay axe like the one used by their father to split firewood on camping trips.

“My dad would have taken this on canoe trips in the 1960s,” Mark explains. “My brother and I have always wanted to make a Hudson Bay axe as a kind of tribute to our dad.”

No two axes that come out of the shop are exactly alike, and with prices starting at $300, they’re a niche heirloom-quality product for connoisseurs.

“Axes tell stories,” Ferguson says. “Because you’re around a fire, you›re in front of a fireplace, you›re canoeing with your dad, you’re sitting outside with your friends around a fire pit, you’re sitting at home reading your kids a story around a wood stove. You’re not going to have an emotional connection to a screwdriver. But you can with an axe, like we do with ours.”

Photo / Tim Greenway
Tanner Wilcox grinds an axe head to refine the overall shape.

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