Quality of edged weapons (101)?

[A. G. Maisey]

Sounds as if we think alike Spiral.

Talking about tools, all my father's hand saws are Disston, bought in the 1920's most of them, maybe one or two in the 1930's. These saws can be set and sharpened, and my understanding is that when they were purchased they cost one hell of a lot of money. If I look at prices on the online auction sites for these old saws, and saw sets and clamps, they still cost a lot of money. But I can buy a brand new Sandvik saw for $8, it works OK, cuts OK, but only for a very short time, then you throw it away and buy a new one, my experience is that these things simply will not sharpen or set.

In respect of kitchen stuff, cutlery, china & etc. I'm not a total barbarian. The Royal Doulton family dinner set, and my grandmother's special order Wedgewood tea set are only dragged out for the visitors. My great grandfather's Staffordshire cheese dish has never been used as long as I've had it --- +50 years now --- because we no longer buy full 12" cheese rounds, we buy a couple of hundred grams in the supermarket as we need it.

I guess you could say I use things that are meant to be used, and/or can be repaired, and try to conserve things that can be damaged or destroyed by over use.

Another modern product that just does not work is the typical hardware store axe. I need to use an axe a fair bit, big block of land, lots of mature trees. The one I use most is a 5 pound Plumb that has been ground to competition geometry and has a competition handle in it. I can cut hardwood all day with this and a brief touch up with a stone brings it back to a shaving edge.

All the other axes I use have similar quality heads, but they have not been given a competition grind. Compare this with the garbage that you can buy in the local hardware store now:- plastic handles, a grind that you can't cut butter with and that is impossible to put a lasting edge on.

Plumb, Keysteel, Kelly, never see these axes anymore.Even the old generic 4 1/2 pound Hytest that used to be everywhere and in fact if properly ground and sharpened was a pretty good axe has disappeared and in its place we find Chinese garbage.

Old tools? Use them, don't put them in a glass case and look at them.

Re my pig bayonet:- not double edge, stamped "3 22 Lithgow" on the ricasso. It saw service in WWII.

[Shakethetrees]

I always feel that using the best is best, unless you might be placing you and it in a situation where something with sentimental value is taken.

Going camping or hunting? Find a well made knife and buy it not it go to the hardware store and grab the nearest piece of a Chinese garbage.

Today we can find, with a few keystrokes, a forum discussing almost anything. If you may need to get something your life could depend on do the research. I would no more take what I know is a great quality knife from my collection and drag it through the woods/water/desert! Great knives are available, but at a cost, as we all know.

One thing I carried was a German made Hubertus switchblade given to me by my Father when he went back there in the early 1990's for a reunion. It's of a small sentimental value, I'd be sick if I lost it, but I know it's of great quality and will do the job it was made for. I do t have to give it the oak plank test to have complete faith in it. The fit and finish is obviously superior to a lot of what's out there. This only works if you truly know knives and not impresses with generally shines things. You must understand how knives are made and what it takes to develop a high degree of finish and mechanical fit.

However, I would not carry his M-3 he carried in WWII, although it is well made, can do the job it was designed for, etc. too much historic/sentimental value here.

[A. G. Maisey]

STT response:-

yep, it should always be a balanced approach, but the balance depends upon one's own point of view.

I was a member of the Australian Knife Makers Guild for many years, I made a few complete knives, but mostly I sold blades to other makers, some in the USA. The only knife I made that I use myself is my desk knife, the first piece of damascus I made. My daily users vary depending on what I'm doing, sometimes its a Boker mini 3 blade stock, sometimes its a mini Swiss Army, sometimes a pattada, sometimes Star Cross (Rodgers) 3 blade stock. All depends on what I'm doing. Seldom carry a belt knife, and what I do carry is usually as small as will do the job. But I use a belt knife quite a bit for various jobs, mostly a Martiini carbon or a Mora laminated, just don't hang them on the belt.

[spiral]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

Sounds as if we think alike Spiral.
.

Strangely so Alan... my 7lb felling axe is an Ellwell datad 1894 it is my favourite splitting axe, sadly I need to make it another new handle. {Last one lasted 18 years. of abuse by myself & a couple of others on occasion...}Although I find 5lb is best for felling, but my 7 lb felling blade was great for splitting, theoretically although not wide like a splitting axe but so well tapered & with the weight would put a cut or split even in a crotch ,knotty or twisted burr piece, big enough to put the wedges in & start pounding with the sledge hammer. Left the modern splitting axes in the shade......

My 1 1/2lb Ellwell is probably 1920s

I only have one mint 20s Diston, but only use it for cutting fine timber in the loft, I use the throwaways in the workshop....

Early Victorian wine glasses I only use on special occasions, {Glass breaks to easily.}

Yep your Lithgow bayonet would be a 1907 pattern, made in March 1922. In good condition that's a few hundred dollars worth today!

I agree about sentimental value STT, those things are best preserved.

spiral

[A. G. Maisey]

Yeah, the bayonet is worth a few bucks, but you can always replace money. $300 bucks is the cost of halfway decent meal for two in a nice restaurant.

I'd sooner keep my bayonet.

7 pound is a big axe. Are you sure it is was originally ground as a felling axe? It seems more likely to be a splitting axe at that weight, which is what you now use it as.

David Foster is unquestionably the greatest axeman the world has seen. He's 6'4' tall he weighed 350pound (25 stone, 159kilos) in race condition, his hand speed was faster than Mohammed Ali. Maybe he could use a 7 pound felling axe, I couldn't and I doubt many normal sized people could. The standard work axe in Australia where virtually everything you see is hardwood, is 4.5 pound.

My 5 pound Plumb was my uncle's race axe, and he was a much bigger man than I am. Its comfortable to use underhand, but its too heavy for me to use balanced on a plank or a ladder up a tree. I cannot use it for felling at height, standing on the ground its OK, but even then it gets heavy a lot quicker than a 4.5 pounder.

The grind on an axe is extremely important for what it is used for, if you try to use an axe that is incorrectly ground for the work and timber it will be used on you'll either ruin the axe or have a memorable accident.

I don't make my axe handles, I source them from competing axemen, who import top quality American hickory. They're not cheap, but they are much better than anything you can buy in a store, or even make at home. Problem with virtually all commercial handles now is that they are made too thin.

My saws are far from mint condition. My father used them all his life, I've used them for over thirty years. They've been set and sharpened uncountable times. They hang on the workshop wall, gather a bit of rust between uses and come up clean and sharp when needed. Definitely not mint, definitely not coddled.

[spiral]

mmm interesting Alan, I wasn't suggesting you sell it, {given the nature of this thread,} just that you found it a great pig sticker, but to many its a valueable collectable.

When I was about 20, I worked in an iron foundry as a hammerman, when I turned up the owner of the foundry laughed & said I was to small, {5ft 8 & 9 stone soaking wet.} I said let me start & if I can do it give me the job if I cant you've had however many hours I last for free.

He laughed & said fine, I did that job for 9 months using a 7lb sledge many hours day. The other hammermen were rather hardy & more massive Sikhs, I had the same output as them.

I preferred the short handled,{ about 20 inch, I think} 4lb & 5lb for one handed work though.

But yes I prefer 5lb for felling! And of course the Colonial hardwoods are much harder than the English.

My Elwell is a felling axe, {I worked in Forestry for a while before going in the foundry.} Its a well known 18th & 19th century English pattern, generally used for softwoods, or notching hardwoods before saw felling, at one time it was sold as the "forest blazer".

Heres an old photo of it next to a standard Gurkha issue kukri. {11 inch blade.} The handle is wytch elm, I find it better than ash , hickory is great but slaps the hands a bit sometimes?

It was virtually unused when I found it years ago, so I guess someone else thought it to heavy to use as well! It was the most expensive axe Elwell used to make.

I must make it a new handle.... just hard to find a piece that's not kiln dried & has the right grain shape.

spiral

[A. G. Maisey]

To my eye, that's a very strange looking axe. I really don't know what use it would be where I live. Actually it is pretty close in shape to the imported things they sell as block splitters, but its sure not anything like our axes here. Its a bit hard to see what sort of grind it had, and that's really what tells you what the axe was meant to do and to what.

What you say about tool weights and physical size is true to a degree.

The heaviest hammer I ever saw used was used by the old bloke who used to be Pak Pauzan's striker. This man's family followed the trade of turning big rocks into little ones:- they made blue metal by hand. He was maybe 50 odd when he started work for Pauzan, and he used an enormous hammer that weighed in excess of 20 kilos. His technique was what I'd call "pendulum" he swung the hammer between his legs like a pendulum and on the return swing he carried it up above his head and down onto the anvil, in effect he turned himself into a pivot point, he really didn't use much strength at all. Just as well, because he stood about 5 foot nothing tall and weighed maybe 55 kilos. When he finished the strike, he'd slide the hammer off of the anvil, let it swing between his legs and do the pendulum thing again. He probably struck half as fast as a normal striker would, but each strike was like a steam hammer. He had been a rock breaker from the age of 6 or 7.

When I was doing a lot of forge work I used a 10 pound and a 12 pound hammer for heavy work and a 4 pound for one hand work. The technique to use a heavy hammer easy is to position yourself so that your back hand comes down onto your hip at exactly the same time that you strike the work on the anvil, then to lift the hammer you turn your hip as you lift, which causes your whole body to lift the hammer, not just your arms. This technique cuts effort by more than half.

If you use an axe handle that is the standard deers foot pattern that they sell in hardware stores, hickory will most certainly slap your hands, so will anything else, but if you use a handle that is the same design as used on racing axes you don't get a slap from any timber. These handles are bigger all round, they have a big hand filling knob as the deers foot and they are not smoothed down, but left with the rasp marks on. Use of one of these handles cuts the effort of axe work by a lot, for one thing, the axe will always go just precisely where you want it to, something that is often difficult to do with an ordinary hardware store handle.

Elwell were never a well known or popular axe in Oz. I'm not a bush worker, but some members of my family used to be, and I live in an area that has been a big timber getting area in the past. Probably Plumb was the Rolls Royce for a work axe, and usually 4.5 pound, a big man would sometimes use a bigger axe but I'd guess that more than 90% of work axes used by the timber getters in this area from the 1920's through to the present would be 4.5 pound. Of course felling was and is mostly done with saws, cross cut up till chain saws came into general use. Kelly and Hytest were always popular, but all I ever see in the hardware stores now are imported junk, not real axes at all.

This is what proper axes look like:-

http://www.osborneaxes.com.au/

http://www.tuatahiaxes.com/index.html

[spiral]

Sure its primarily designed for high moisture content softwoods, not that many of those in Oz. in the old days! & the modern rubbish radiata pine on plantations is all done by heavy machinery Id guess? {replacing even chainsaws.}

It was the standard English pattern felling axe for 200 plus years, but yep for me its just a splitter! Ive added a photo of its other profile.

Sure using a hammer or axe two handed is a full body experience! I always smile when I see people chop wood with just there arms! It looks really hard work!

Those custom axes look great, never seen anything like them before. Id love one! But no good for my splitting firewood of course! I am sure it would damage the edge no end to misuse it such. Am unaware of the racing handle type as well. Ill look into it., sounds interesting.

spiral