Hatchet Construction.

[crockett]

I always thought that the only way pre-1840 hatchets were made was by starting with a long flat bar of iron and hammering it around a mandrel, the mandrel forming the tool's eye. Then a piece of good steel was sandwiched in between the outer edges and forge-welded in place, the steel becoming the bit of the tool.
The only issue with this method was having enough steel at the back to form a square poll. The fold could be made so that about 3/4" of the fold was just hammered down behind the eye to create the poll however I recently read that two pieces of iron were sometimes used and forge-welded at either end.
For axe and hatchets with polls- how were they usually made? When did cast heads come into use?

 

[palonghunter]

The eye is punched. Basically you start with a billet of metal, get it hot, and then drive a punch through it to create the eye.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzSJBpompA0

 

[Elnathan]

Cast axes would be strictly 20th century, I believe - there was "cast-steel" in the 19th century but that name referred to method of making the steel, not forming the tool.

As for the process of forging:

According to Joe DeLaRonde, a polled axe can be more or less like a round-poll axe, except that instead of wrapping it around a mandrel, you hammer two depressions into a flat piece of iron separated with the distance of the desired poll height x2, then use a chisel to cut the poll area almost through at the halfway point and fold it over so the two depressions form the eye. Weld it together with a steel bit like a roundpoll.

OR

Another method is to just weld a chuck of steel on the top of what would otherwise be a roundpoll - I suspect that the best way to do that would be to weld the poll on before folding it over the mandrel. LaCrosse illustrates a full-sized axe made in this way in The Frontier Rifleman.

OR

Another way I have seen on an online tutorial (now long gone, alas) is to make up of four pieces - a bit piece and a filler piece for the poll sandwiched between two flat pieces of iron.

I don't know which of the three were most popular, though. I suspect the first two more than the third, as they would be a lot easier to do. I looked through a collection of late 19th century blacksmithing articles, and while there is a lot on tempering axes there is nothing on how they forged them.

As for punching the eye, that works well if you are working with a homogenous bar of modern steel - I once made a little round-poll axe from O-1 using this method. With a piece of wrought iron with a pronounced grain, though, I'd suspect that you'd run into the problem of the eye wanting to separate at the top of the eye unless you had a pretty substantial poll - I know that some medieval axes with rounded polls were made by continuing the split all the way up the poll and then bending the resulting flaps of iron over an mandrel and lap-welding them to form the eye, precisely because of this problem of wrought iron separating. Even then you need to weld a steel bit on.
I don't know enough to say that punched eyes weren't used before 1840 or so, but it seems unlikely to me that they were common - seems like there would be easier ways do get the job done with the available materials.

I have little practical experience, so this is mostly based on reading.

 

[crockett]

Interesting information- thanks.

 

[OzarkLuke]

Pictures with description of making a small axe from WI with a welded bit: http://naterunals.com/2012/05/19/making-of-a-mini-hatchet/

Surely many ways to get this done...

 

[Elnathan]

Pictures with description of making a small axe from WI with a welded bit: http://naterunals.com/2012/05/19/making-of-a-mini-hatchet/

Surely many ways to get this done...

That is pretty much what I was trying to describe in that first technique.

 

[crockett]

That was sort of my original question. Many years ago I read a book by Eric Sloane on Early American tools and I think he mentioned only the long piece of iron doubled over. Then, in Carl P. Russell's book it shows a thicker piece of iron and the back is spilt apart to form the eye and then forge welded back together behind the eye. I've read about cast steel but wasn't sure if that was used as steel was expensive and making the entire head of steel might have not been done. I had no idea one way or the other about punching out a hole to form the eye. The Russell book also shows two flat plates of iron and then a third piece or plug, that fit between them to make the pole area.

 

[Stophel]

Different forms of axes can be done with different techniques.

Here's how a French (and European in general) axe from the 17th-19th centuries (and actually, even to today) is formed.
http://lesforgesdemontreal.org/regaining-lost-knowledge-biscayne-axe-head/

 

[buffcreekforge]

That is the way I build them - I make 10-12 per year. It takes about an hour of forge work per axe.

I remain your humble servant,

Just (Black) Dave

 

[crockett]

There is mention of axes (hatchets) made without a steel bit. Were these mostly French and used in the Fur Trade? On steel bits; in Carl P. Russell's book it appears the bit could be sort of diamond shaped and placed or inserted between two front sides (or split front if mono-bloc) and hammered in place. Was this a mechanical retention or was it forge welded? Or both? The other type of steel bit is "capped" that is, the back of the bit is split and fits over the front of the iron portion of the axe head.
Which was more common? On the forge welding- can the weld lines be seen or do they disappear?

 

[Stophel]

There were cheaper French trade axes of the 17th century (I don't know how long they kept trying to pass them off.. :grin: ) that were just iron, no steel bit. The lap weld would be on one side of the head ahead of the eye.

 

[Elnathan]

There is mention of axes (hatchets) made without a steel bit. Were these mostly French and used in the Fur Trade? On steel bits; in Carl P. Russell's book it appears the bit could be sort of diamond shaped and placed or inserted between two front sides (or split front if mono-bloc) and hammered in place. Was this a mechanical retention or was it forge welded? Or both? The other type of steel bit is "capped" that is, the back of the bit is split and fits over the front of the iron portion of the axe head.
Which was more common? On the forge welding- can the weld lines be seen or do they disappear?

The inserted bit was the more common, I believe - it certainly makes for a better axe - and it would have been forge-welded. Weld lines between dissimilar steels/iron are visible but subtle; I don't have an axe with an inserted bit but I do have a Japanese gouge made from a steel edge laminated onto a piece of wrought iron and the weld line is visible due to the difference in the texture of the metals.

 

[crockett]

Sorry, I was thinking more the weld lines of the iron on iron. For example, if the back of a mono-bloc was split apart to form the eye and then behind the eye the sides hammered together to form a poll and forge welded- would that weld line be visible?

 

[LaBonte]

It will show at least to the learned eye. After wear and tear the welds maybe be less visible.

As for construction details see this free download: https://archive.org/details/americanindiant00pete

Shows clearly the basic welded eye with steel bit as well as punched eye construction techniques and also pipehawk construction. Re-steeling axes, etc was a common frontier smith job, and show up on several period work orders including the Hawken Bros. Solid steel heads don't show up until very ate in the 19th Century.
The most common steel used for bits was the cheapest of the three main types available was blister steel, but shear steel and cast steel were also used on better quality pieces. I've got at least one reference to a Great Lakes smith asking for cast steel for his bits rather then the poor quality blister steel.

 

[LaBonte]

Here's a pic showing the weld line between a wrought iron eye/wrap with a spring steel (1080 a simple carbon steel similar in properties to the steels used back when)

I tend to make my bits a bit longer than the originals and then raise some sprues on each side. Done right it's a combo of a mechanical joint as well as a forged welded.

 

[Stophel]

Here's my awesome little bitty belt axe head, that I think is the most awesomest thing ever. Marked faintly "BEDFORD MFG/BEDFORD QUE". If unmarked, many would swear it had to be an early 19th century or earlier axe, yet the mark puts a date of 1895-1933 on it. Hand forged, not perfectly shaped, filed out mostly smooth, but with pits remaining (old hand forged axes were not generally left rough and black, at least not what I have seen. It is popular today, though, just to prove that it is a hand forged axe.) Here maybe you can see the end of the welded in steel bit in the characteristic Biscayne notch. Weld lines can be seen on the sides of the bit, though they are very faint. I guess you might consider this a "Hudson's Bay Pattern" axe, with the slightly thickened poll, and the thinner cheeks. True "Biscayne" axe heads can be quite thick and wedge shaped.

I just also bought two very similar Biscayne type axe heads from Portugal. Both fairly small, one a bit smaller than the other, nice "belt axe" size. I will have to guess that these were made in the 1930's-1940's. Yep, forged. On these two, however, you can see that the method of bit insertion is rather more "production" quality. The steel runs back all the way to the eye, and they didn't bother welding it fully all the way back.

This one is the slightly larger one, with the rather modern-ish looking marking. I'll assume the "1" means "1 kilogram"

This other one has more pleasing proportions, narrower, which makes it look longer, and more like older Biscayne axe heads. It is in rougher shape, however, and I need to clean it up and reshape the mashed-in eye. I'll also probably clean out and silver braze up the cracks where the bit wasn't welded together on both of them. This one has a small mark (an illegible name) and will make a dandy little reasonable facsimile of a 17th-18th century axe. :wink:

Just because something is "hand forged" don't mean it's that old. Go to the ebay site of any European country and search for that language equivalent of "old axe" or "antique axe", and you will find a large number of really fantastic hand forged axes of all kinds made well into the 20th century. Many European carpenter's axes are being imported today and sold as "tomahawks" to unwary (and many who should be wary, but aren't) collectors.

I sometimes go to www.ebay.de and type in "alte axt" and then go, "oooh! I want that, and that, and that, and that...!" :haha:

 

[crockett]

Thanks everyone for all the information. It seems that a punched eye is definitely pc even if used more for tomahawks or Hudson Bay types with a shorter eye length. A lot of different construction methods.