How long do you keep your stone axe?

[Dimpy 84]

I tend to have a stone axe in my inventory for a long time and am curious if other people do too. It's pretty versatile, but also weak late-game.

[theFlu 55]

Depends a little on luck, but I often find myself scrapping poor quality iron axes in favor of the trusty stone axe. The marginal improvement isn't worth the extra toolbelt slot; I want to have an upgrade tool there for the early game anyway.

[Kyonshi 14]

As soon as i have a stack of 25 repair kits, i ditch it. That's my milestone. By the time i will have to repair a single iron/steel tool, i'll already have found other kits or enough parts to craft plenty.

[hiemfire 70]

When I have sufficiently durable tools that fill each of the roles it fulfills. Tends to result in me having an auger, chainsaw and nailgun before I finally toss it and use an iron or steel axe to remove the trash/glass plies that tip off zombies.

[SnowDog1942 339]

I keep it until it starts annoying me, as long as I got other tools at that point I get rid of it.

[quyxkh 15]

For scouting and looting it's the all-purpose tool, you can build with it, it's one slot. The four slots I basically never change are stone axe on 1, wood, rocks, fiber in the backpack.

[12pack 11]

It's pretty useful very early game, but i tend to scrap it when i find a decent supply of repair kits,

and i don't need to be upgrading frames on the fly..

as for breaking through doors and into crates, i find the sledge to be quite adept..

and since i'm already using the sledge to bash in Zed heads, that works out pretty well..

[Worrun 32]

I used to keep it around for on-the-fly repairs and knocking wooden boxes really quick

[AtomicUs5000 102]

I use stone axes forever.
Unless I have mass amounts of upgrading to do, I prefer it over the nail gun. I tend to upgrade things before I want to on accident with that.
Since I don't care to constantly switch out gear when going between building/looting/horde moments, I just keep it on hand and rarely bother using a fireaxe. Even if I have a good number of repair kits, I usually play solo and don't have someone to help replenish those... and you tend to burn through them quickly looting and going on missions with the fireaxe. If there were less things that could be one-shotted with a good stone axe, I might feel differently.
I also tend to put the burning shaft on it because in most situations, I don't like that mod. However, sometimes there are perfect moments when using one would be a great idea, so I justify using up a slot for a stone axe by considering it a special melee attack.

 

I put the stone axe away when farming trees. After that, it goes back in inventory.

Edited May 22 by AtomicUs5000 (see edit history)

[grieferbastard 5]

Forever. It reduces my wear and tear on more valuable tools, it's quick and simple for all the basics. Wood frames, removing debris, etc. I don't ever get rid of it.

[Roland 1,910]

It's gone as soon as I have an iron axe, iron pick, and a hammer. Until I have all three I keep it to do what the other two can't.

[Banginurz 1]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

It's gone as soon as I have an iron axe, iron pick, and a hammer. Until I have all three I keep it to do what the other two can't.

This.

[rosedragon 1]

I keep it until I have repair kits, then I put it on one of my storage forever. Now I have lvl 5 stone axe and lvl 3 taza axe on my storage.

[pApA^LeGBa 99]

The option when i have all tools in iron is missing. I get rid of it as soon as i have a shovel, fire and pickaxe in iron. Forge is there at day one anyways, so repair kits aren´t a problem, usually i have enough repair kits before i have all tools in iron anyways. I don´t invest in mining skills early on so i rely on finding them. 

[Kirtonos 11]

On 5/21/2020 at 8:19 PM, Roland said:

It's gone as soon as I have an iron axe, iron pick, and a hammer. Until I have all three I keep it to do what the other two can't.

Ditto.

The statements about being concerned for tool durability by others was kinda surprising. I've either always been able to make a new higher tier tool or found a replacement in loot before needing to really worry about repairing. Granted, I'm not the type to build my own structure from scratch on day 1 but rather take over POI's now. This requires less overall resources and harvesting in the early days when a stone ax is most valuable. 

[Ttocs 7]

Always keep it in a safe space aslong as it doesnt fall out, never know when it could come in handy in a pinch

[Synvastian 61]

When I have a t3 iron axe, pickaxe and hammer or better

 

until then its all about how easy it is to repair, usually by the time I have all 3 at tier 3, I can easily repair the new tools

[12pack 11]

5 hours ago, Kirtonos said:

The statements about being concerned for tool durability by others was kinda surprising. I've either always been able to make a new higher tier tool or found a replacement in loot before needing to really worry about repairing.

100% loot really is not a problem.. ya use the stone axe, stone sledge, wood club, whatever, for a minute while it suits ya..

repair a couple times.. meh..

perk up in looter early, the rest is moot..

50% loot or less (25 even)..  it becomes a bit of a chore.. leaving you with stone axe, stone sledge, wood club

for so much longer...

durability becomes a thing to be concerned about,

and using iron replacements becomes a question of: do i really need to..

[Guppycur 924]

Fast, virtually invulnerable, performs multiple functions...

 

Forever. 

[DrTeath 4]

Until I can reliably repair Iron ones.

[Feycat 77]

On 5/25/2020 at 10:52 AM, Guppycur said:

Fast, virtually invulnerable, performs multiple functions...

 

Forever. 

This. I don't carry an axe, pick or hammer. My husband carries a pick, and both of us carry a top level stone axe with mods. It's seriously the most versatile object in the game, it's literally always useful.