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Axes

leswad

leswad

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Since my property burnt a few years ago, I have had to cut down 100s of trees and chopped them up for firewood. This caused me to buy several modern axes to help in making firewood and getting a little exercise in. This has progressed into an interest of antique axes, so I just bought a couple:

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The one on the right is a Zenith Double Bit has been marked repeatedly with FS for United States Forest Service dating to 1910.

On the left is a Clean Cut hatchet Sold by Dunham, Carrigan & Hayden Company, who were the leading supplier of wholesale hardware and mining supplies out of San Francisco between 1888 to 1927.

I think they are cool and will get used... anyone else collect axes?
 
I would pick up almost any ax or hatchet head in good shape at yard sales. I would buy handles and use the on a camping trip or around the yard. Some hold an edge, some just seem "right" of flow through a swing. These I keep. The ones that turn out unfavorable, they are the ones that get loaned! (My philosophy is: If you have to borrow an ax; you probably don't know how to use and care for one!)

My favorite yard sale find was a 3/4 or "Pole Ax" by Plumb. I could put a hatchet handle or a small ax handle on it, I chose the Topping ax handle. Almost as long as a full size single bit handle, but thin and graceful. This makes a great Limbing Ax, where you use one hand to swing over head. If you chop much firewood with it; it will break! I got it for 50 cents, but it took 2 years and $8 to find the correct handle. I have a similar head on a 3/4 handle for camping.

We heated with fire wood for almost 35 years. I learned to get pretty fast at rehandling mauls, sledges, and axes. I have three sons, but once and a while there would be as many as 8 boys splitting wood, they thought it was fun and good exercise. I could go through as many as 10 handles on a day like that! But they would learn, and my boys would keep an eye on them for safety. And they would stop the other boys from using my favorite axes!

Ivan
 
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Axes are great tools. I have several, an old double bit from the 20s for splitting big wood. A Fire service single bit I found while deer hunting, had to put a new handle on it but the orange paint was still good. An old beat up single bit I use for chopping roots. A short single bit, the truck axe. My Dad's old kindling hatchet, sharp. And a 6 pound maul. As soon as the garden planting is finished wood season begins. Good exercise.
 
Have a True Temper Kelly Perfect. Got my hands on it back when I was in high school, about 1972. Used it hard splitting wood, etc. Later it paid a lot of bills for me when I was working through college. I have used it for everything from cutting trees, cutting/splitting fire wood, etc. Nice 4 lb. head is just about perfect. Polished it like a mirror and sharpened it like a razor. Today it will still shave hair. Wonderful tool. Original handle! Swings sweet!

Have a Plumb camp axe. Cute little thing. Red painted handle. Got it from my brother. Wouldn't take $100 for it!

Have a Plumb double-edged axe. I was digging stumps at the parsonage. One of my church members thought it might be useful to me so he gave it to me. Never had a double face axe before. I like it.

Also have several common big box type axes made in Mexico. Nothing special. Typical club axe heads. However, when digging stumps, they are ideal. Not about to use a good axe when working in a area where a rock, etc. might be encountered.

Am thinking seriously about buying a new axe. Probably will look at some of the newer designs. There are some nice axes from Germany, Sweden. Never know what one might find. Maybe get lucky and run up on a nice something at a yard sale! Sincerely. bruce.
 
The locally owned large hardware store imports axes and hatchets from Sweden. Quite expensive, but beautiful. I would love to have one, although I don't really have a use for one, and probably shouldn't be trusted with anything that sharp! The one I really want has a name in Swedish that translate to "elk dismantler". The Swedish elk looks like a slimmer moose, with a less blocky shape and smaller antlers than the North American version.
 
I have Keen Kutter and a Plumb. Also have a blacksmith made
broad ax that is at least 80 years old. At one time owned a
Stanley but sold it to a collector.
 
I have a Gerber camp axe and a similar Buck, both with synthetic handles that won't come off like wooden ones do.

I feel well ahead of our prehistoric ancestors in stone axe days.
 
I have a Germantown Tool Works hatchet from what I think is the prewar era. The handle has been replaced. Nice little hatchet. Bought it a couple years ago primarily for making kindling for my fireplace.

It’d been a long time since I’d had a hatchet or axe.

Growing up in northern Virginia, my father taught me to use an axe. In winter as a boy of 11 or 12, the dog and I’d go into the snowy woods with an axe and some rope, chop fallen branches and tree trunks into draggable size, and head for home for the final chopping. Gave one a sense of accomplishment.
 
Not a collector, but somehow a collection found me. A Plumb Boy Scout light hatchet with original red handle appeared at a yard sale, I replaced the handle on an old Plumb mid-size axe, found Dad's old beat-up Norlund, then a friend who was retiring to a condo gave me a no-name felling axe with a red and white handle, and axe heads including a True Temper Kelley Perfect and a medium-size one stamped "Sweden." There are a couple of more without handles, and I just bought an Estwing camp hatchet that will live in my son's VW camper van. Claw hammers, at least a dozen, including three sizes of Estwings, a couple of Vaughans w/ wood handles, a couple of Stanleys and a big old original Hart California framer along with a 16-ounce Hart. Can't forget the small 2, 3 and 4-pound mason's hammers and the 8 and 12-pound sledges. There are more, including splitting mauls, pickaxes and whatnot. Time to thin the herd, I guess.
 
When I started working at W. A. Whitney in 1966, they carried a line of sheet metal tools, including the full line of Estwing products, made right here in Rockford. Estwing decided not to wholesale to us, for some reason, so all the Estwing products we had in inventory were sold to employees for a dollar apiece. I bought two or three of everything I might ever use, and one of just about everything else. I think I spent about thirty dollars. A lot of them were given away, but I still have a half dozen or so.

One thing I was told by an old carpenter, that I always wondered about. He claimed that no one who used a hammer all day would use an Estwing because there was no give in the steel handle, and the user would tire more quickly. I can't ask another old carpenter because there aren't hardly any older than me.
 
In addition to my axes & hatchets, I have some nice, but nothing special Tomahawks. My boys were out throwing them about 25 years ago and stuck one in the target and another son hit the handle and took out a big chunk. I banned them from my tomahawks for life! But we took inexpensive hatchets and rehandled them with "California Framer" handles, then used a bench sander to remove the palm swell. This left a one pound head with an 18" straight handled "Throwing Hatchet". Over the next few months each boy had 2 or 3. They learned very fast how to install a new handle. They loved throwing them at a dilapidated out building we had, until they chopped right through the barn siding! They placed 2x10 planks over the hole they created and ended up with an 8'x8' target area. from 50 to 75 feet they were very deadly! They spray painted a man sized silhouette on the target boards and ended up hollowing out the face, heart, and crotch with repeated throws. I know the older sons took their hatchets with them after they came home from the service. But I haven't heard any tails of grand kids throwing hatchets .......yet! (the oldest 5 are 8 to 13, just about time for grandpa to stir things up!)

Ivan
 
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bigolddave said:
When I started working at W. A. Whitney in 1966, they carried a line of sheet metal tools, including the full line of Estwing products, made right here in Rockford. Estwing decided not to wholesale to us, for some reason, so all the Estwing products we had in inventory were sold to employees for a dollar apiece. I bought two or three of everything I might ever use, and one of just about everything else. I think I spent about thirty dollars. A lot of them were given away, but I still have a half dozen or so.

One thing I was told by an old carpenter, that I always wondered about. He claimed that no one who used a hammer all day would use an Estwing because there was no give in the steel handle, and the user would tire more quickly. I can't ask another old carpenter because there aren't hardly any older than me.
Click to expand...

I had a single summer as an apprentice carpenter in 1967, The only framing hammer I owned then was a 22 ounce straight claw! A few years later I went to a 28 ounce waffle face Plumb framer with an 18 inch handle, then I added a matching Stanley smooth face. My shop teachers in High School said we were suppose to use a 20 or so ounce hammer until we tired then go to a 24 or 28 ounce so there would be fewer swings necessary. But in my experience all framing hammers weigh 18 pounds buy the end of a long summer's day! and wood handles were not harder or easier that steel handles, but they sure do swing different!

Ivan
 
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