Three countries, two continents, one passion.

We just want to make great axes.

LAMACA Handmade Axes is a multi-year collaboration across thousands of miles to bring beautiful, highly-functional axes to people who will appreciate them. "LAMACA" is an imperfect acronym of both our names and countries of origin, which you can see does't work out perfectly either way, but it stuck! Our goal is to be here in 5, 10, 20 years still making superb forest tools for outdoor enthusiast everywhere. What seemed impossible in the beginning slowly became a reality as we worked together to find a way. We've been through a lot of agonizing over every aspect of our models through trial and error, testing and improvement, but now we are thrilled to invite you to try our axes and let us know what you think.

Mārcis Liepiņš - Blacksmith, Cesis, Latvia

I’ve been a blacksmith since I was 20 years old. It is all I wanted to do and it is all I hope to do for a long time. I was fortunate to be trained by some of the most respected edged tool smiths in the world and my specialty is axes of all kinds. I love axes! They are some of the simplest, yet most useful of tools. I seek to share my skills and ideas with people looking for something special in this traditional tool.

Lane Packwood - Hafting/Teaching/Customer Support, Boise, Idaho, USA

I started collecting axes years ago, then started fixing them up for friends and family, then eventually messing around with them to see if I could get them to perform better (and to become a better axeman myself along the way). Eventually I started a YouTube channel about axe history and design and worked on ideas until I couldn't take it any longer. I had to find some other axe enthusiasts to see if we couldn't just make our own. LAMACA is the result of that unlikely journey. I am a former US Army Lt. Colonel and combat veteran with 26 years of military service. I've worked in a variety of public and private sector positions but now I just want to make great axes that people will enjoy for many years and pass on to future generations. 

Colby Owen - Master of Lathes, Merville, BC, Canada

Growing up on Vancouver Island, I was surrounded by rainforest and the logging industry. Like many here, I've always heated with a wood stove and splitting firewood is a comfortable yearly routine. For those reasons I grew to love axes and their history. I starting searching for axes locally, collecting and restoring anything I could find. Years passed and a mighty pile of rusty steel grew. But a few were unused, with original paper labels and paint. These NOS axes told different stories than their rusty brothers, they answered questions the others couldn't and so I focused my collecting efforts on them. One day I met an old fella with a few axe heads for sale. He offered me a wheelbarrow full of handles. When I asked where the handles came from, he showed me a copy lathe he wanted to sell. The rest is history!