Is this a carpenters axe?

[skipskip]

If not what is it called?

1 1/2 pounds  5 3/4 overall length, its hatchet sized

also only one bevel, like a chisel

AOCT0083 by skipskip, on Flickr

thanks

Skip

[scottg]

  Its a broad hatchet. Little sister to the broad ax.
 William C Kelley The most famous ax maker that ever came down the pike.
Kelley Perfect has generations of respect behind it. It was still legendary when I was a kid. This will be a great tool, restored.
 
   The particular stamp puts it after 1900 and up to 1930, but I think that mark is earlier rather than later in the period.
 
  If you are planning to use it as an all-around tool, it was supplied with a straight 14" handle. Maybe 13", but the parameter does not go further than that.

  If you already have hammers galore, and the ax is all you care about, a slightly bent handle will prove to be a little more comfortable in use.

   If you are rt handed (or like me, lefty, but started using axes before you knew left handed tools were possible)  you mount the head so that when its extended straight away from you, in your right hand, the flat side is nearest you.
 Like in this pic
 
    yours Scott   
PS When this ax has been mounted and polished and is bristling razor sharp (as it can be),
 The second time you swing it? Is like stepping to the plate with the bases loaded.
 The second time, you will realize how effective this tool can be.
 I mean meaningfully effective.  Terrifyingly effective.
 Wood will just disappear, but then, anything else you hit will disappear just as fast. 
   
 

[john k]

Skip how did you come by this fine edge tool?   I find plenty of axe heads,,,,, rusty and nameless.

[scottg]

Yeah I want to know too???   

   I don't even see any swelling at the eye where people were pounding it for a wedge.
   
 This will be a pip
   
 Ok when you start to carve wood with it. .......
The lowest part of the edge is where the impact is.  Use that lower part to dig in deep. It will fall deep into wood with very little effort.
 The middle takes smaller bites and the top part you feather over the work taking little slices to clean it up.
     you'll see
      yours Scott

[Branson]

Most of mine came to me in about this condition -- even the one I found in the crawl space under an old house.  They're kinda addictive, actually.   I've gout four or five around the house and shop here, and probably a couple more in storage, yet to be unearthed.  The biggest one here is a Collins with its original handle, around 18 inches long, and a 5 inch wide bit.  They used to be fairly common in a carpenter's tool box, back when construction timbers were rough sawn and not precisely dimensional.

Like Scott said, all sharpened up, you're gonna like it a lot.

[Bill Houghton]

They used to be fairly common in a carpenter's tool box, back when construction timbers were rough sawn and not precisely dimensional.

And, indeed, when I competed to be a union carpenter (failed to get a job) back in the 1970s, they were a required tool in the apprentice's kit.  The union was still requiring some tools not actually much used on the job, but the fact that they hadn't dropped that one indicates that it was still getting some action.

[bear_man]

     I found a seemingly goodish rap (I cut-and-pasted in a Word doc.) on Kelly axes which says Kelly relocated to Charleston, WV, in 1904.  Here's a link to the hist. of Kelly linked from an American Fork & Hoe Co. history:

   http://www.yesteryearstools.com/Yesteryears%20Tools/Kelly%20Axe%20Mfg.%20Co.%20.html

     I'd not remembered that practically all the axe "brands" I'm familiar with fall under an American Fork & Hoe Co. umbrella.  Seems they were kinda like Stanley, in that they bought up anyone who might've been a competitor?
     My own go-to "framing hammer" is a waffle-headed 28 oz. Plumb rig-axe, which I was told by an uncle was made famous by the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers (of which Uncle Alan was a member during WWII in the Pacific Theater).  They're not a "broad hatchet" because they have two bevels, but I reckon the hacking action/function is at least similar-enuf to your tool.  Could C-of-E WWII vets have influenced union tool-kit requirements in the '70s?  Entirely possible, I reckon.  Two days of using one to frame a huge replacement roof made me a convert — one tap to set a 16d common in place and one to sink it flush beat the tar out of tap-tap-tap-tapping w/ 16-18 oz. hammers.  Other carpenters in 1970s-1990s New Mexico sneered and called them "California framing hammers."  I can see the benefit of the single-bevel/broad-hatchet variety, but only as long as it has a waffle-head — to me an I-refuse-to-do-without innovation in my rig-axe.
     I'd add to Scottg's Oct. 16 post that typically the "bent handle" idea has the handle offset a bit to the right (if you're right-handed), so the handle more-easily clears the flattening work you're on.  But that's timber-frame thinking, not rig-axe/glorified-hammer thinking. 
     And on the handle-acquisition side of things, I have several broad-axe and -hatchet heads that need handles but my queries of handle suppliers haven't located anyone who specifically makes them.  Yet.  And yeah, I always keep an eye out for possible broad-whatever handle stock in my mixed-species north central Idaho forest, so far w/o joy.  Perhaps I'm too much of a stickler for continuous grain-direction?  Possibly.   * he gives out with a smallish smile and tries to blush, but fails miserably*
     As usual, I learned some things from this thread, so thanks, y'all.  -bear

[Branson]

     I'd add to Scottg's Oct. 16 post that typically the "bent handle" idea has the handle offset a bit to the right (if you're right-handed), so the handle more-easily clears the flattening work you're on.  But that's timber-frame thinking, not rig-axe/glorified-hammer thinking. 
     And on the handle-acquisition side of things, I have several broad-axe and -hatchet heads that need handles but my queries of handle suppliers haven't located anyone who specifically makes them.  Yet.  And yeah, I always keep an eye out for possible broad-whatever handle stock in my mixed-species north central Idaho forest, so far w/o joy.  Perhaps I'm too much of a stickler for continuous grain-direction?  Possibly.   * he gives out with a smallish smile and tries to blush, but fails miserably*
     As usual, I learned some things from this thread, so thanks, y'all.  -bear

While the broad axes really need an offset handle. I've never seen an offset handle on a broad hatchet.  Broad hatchets were standard issue to artificers in the light and mounted artillery since at least 1840.  Their handles were not off set and always straight -- there are Ordnance Department drawings that clearly show this sort of handle.  That's what is on my big Collins, and is its original handle.   

These handles are readily available.  I've bought two or three in the past 3 years at my local Ace Hardware.

[bear_man]

Three years ago I picked up two broad-axes and two (plus a third head-only) broad-hatchets at an auction of gold mining property stuff near Grangeville, ID.  One hatchet handle was made by the user/s and he/she/they decided to make the handle offset — and the tool had been used a Lot.  The other hatchet handle was possibly-commercial and was straight, like Branson suggested.  I can see why someone whanging away on mine timbers in a largely dark environment might prefer the bent handle, but that's an unususal environment for using the tool.  Oh yeah, the original owner's g-children who were selling the property said all the axes and hatchets came from deep in the mine.

[Billman49]

In the UK both broad axes and broad hatchets are known as side axes - the small ones were also part of a general carpenter's tool kit up to WW2 - thereafter they became scarce... I bought a nice one ex miltary about 25 years ago - 2 1/2 lbs.... I found a nice US broad axe in France a few years ago for 4 euros - just rehandled it... it's a big beast... (the one in the centre)

Side axes are still common on continental Europe, especially in France, Germany and Austria....

[scottg]

Nice broad there, Bob! Its really similar to axes we find here. Really really similar.
  I wonder if people adopted a kind of universal broad ax pattern for a while?
 I see these with all kinds of names on them.
     
 The other two aren't "regular" though! Where did those come from??

   I got make a "miniature beam" with a broad hatchet this year.  Nothing speciaL
I just needed a gate arch, and couldn't help playing a little with a couple axes. Axes are addicting you know. 
 
 Well it all started when my buddy dropped a tree right on the old gate arch. A perfect shot.
  I didn't want to take down the fence and put in new posts and all that.Its only the back gate.  So i just made a T out of 2X4's and 2X2's  (since that is what i had handy and free), and cut a big oak limb for my arch.  The limb was way too fat for the occasion, so I took almost 1/2 of it off.
To fit.
  Chopping green wood with a sharp ax is satisfying.  Its not effortless, but you get results and that is cool.
   yours Scott 

[Billman49]

The broad axe head cost 4 euros from a junk bucket at the tool fair at Bièvres in France in 2012 - it's US made (I'll dig it out and post a close up of the maker's stamp....