Axe Questions

Operator1975

Operator1975

Joined
Sep 24, 2010
Messages
2,395
Here we go -

1. Why was Plumb using one piece steel construction on axe heads by 1930, while Kelly appears to never really followed suit.....

2. Have you ever seen a Kelly Perfect....Connecticut pattern?

3. According to old catalogs of Kelly, in 1911 the Black Raven had the same price point as the Flint Edge, Standard, etc, but by 1933 was second behind the Registered line......but yet the Black Raven is the "Cadillac" of the what we think

4. Who or what was exactly American Fork and Hoe, that bought out the biggest axe maker in the world in 1930? (9 short years after Kelly bought out the biggest axe manufacturer in the world)

5. If Collins doesn't have the massive flood of 1955, does everything change in the axe game as we know it?

6. William Sager, who founded Warren Axe and Tool Co in 1893, patented the Sager Chemical Process in 1895, left Warren Axe and Tool Co, and went to Louisville Axe and Tool Co - why didn't he take the Sager Chemical Process patent with him?

7. Leather is an absolute must on the axes of today - yet there is no to little mention of it in the catalogs of lore - why is leather important now and not back in the hey day of axes?

8. Just what exactly is the difference between Bessemer, Crucible, and Cast Steel ?

9. When did Council, est 1886, actually get into the axe game?

10. As the need for axes moved west with the population, why didn't an axe manufacturer come to be in the west or the north west? Logistics? Supplies? Easier to just rail road it out? Abundance of hardware stores to fill the order needs? Timelines and the death of the axe?

These are a sample of the questions that keep me up at night thinking about axe related material.

Any help here is warranted and appreciated.

I have some answers and insight here already but more is needed and appreciated.

Thanks.

Mike -

DBAxECo (Double Bit Axe Co)
 
William Kelly came up with the Bessemer process before Bessemer did, which I thought was interesting.

As I understand it cast steel is crucible steel. An indicator of quality above bloomery steel.

It's funny about the Connecticut Perfect. I was just asking myself that question the other night. My guess is that the thin profile of a Connecticut pattern didn't lend itself well to phantom bevels.

Black Raven is just flat good marketing, I think. I guess it appealed to people back then the same way it does now. I have wondered why or how marketing the line Black Raven even came to be. I just don't understand. They were trying to think of a name for an axe line, and someone was like, "Black Raven!" But why? Mostly marketing of the day seems to have centered on highlighting the merit of the tool in question. Peerless. Our Very Best. Perfect. A black raven doesn't seem to imply anything to me at all, other than it's just cool.

I'm dead tired but there's a lot of interesting stuff to talk about here. Looking forward to this conversation.
 
10. As the need for axes moved west with the population, why didn't an axe manufacturer come to be in the west or the north west? Logistics? Supplies? Easier to just rail road it out? Abundance of hardware stores to fill the order needs? Timelines and the death of the axe.

Just to get the ball rolling.
B38-B4-A47-E004-4-F63-8787-5-E16-F65786-DC.jpg


General tree type dispersal:
EBAE551-F-CBF7-45-C1-B6-F3-944-AED54-D236.gif

It's a large question. Book worthy, even.
 
I think the Eastern United States had the iron grip on steel production. These industries were already so heavily established. By the turn of the 20th century the country had already seen axe manufacturers being conglomerated and condensed to a large degree. In that kind of atmosphere I can see why anybody would be reticent to start an axe manufacturing interest. With the railroad I don't think supply was lacking. I seriously need to go to sleep otherwise I'm going to be up all night thinking about this stuff.
 
Question #6: I don't know if it was common practice in the late 1800s or not, but, many companies have employment contracts that stipulate that since you are working for them the ideas you have or develop during your employment and perhaps after your termination if it can be proven you were developing a process or product while still being employed belong to the company. Additionally, while the inventor will likely have their name on a patent, the patent is transferred to the company's ownership as per the employment contract. This is very common these days. William Sager may have found himself in a situation where the buyer deemed the chemical process that Sager patented the item of value and would not buy the company without the chemical process being part of the sale.
 
Agent_H said:
10. As the need for axes moved west with the population, why didn't an axe manufacturer come to be in the west or the north west? Logistics? Supplies? Easier to just rail road it out? Abundance of hardware stores to fill the order needs? Timelines and the death of the axe.

Just to get the ball rolling.
B38-B4-A47-E004-4-F63-8787-5-E16-F65786-DC.jpg


General tree type dispersal:
EBAE551-F-CBF7-45-C1-B6-F3-944-AED54-D236.gif

It's a large question. Book worthy, even.
Click to expand...

Infrastructure, availability of skilled labor, and supply chain logistics. Many manufacturers had offices in the midwest, but the goods themselves were all east coast manufacture. A lot of companies sourced raw materials from Europe for much longer than one might expect, too, due to market biases against domestic iron and steel (that were largely incorrect, as American iron and steel very quickly became the equal of European import materials.)
 
Operator1975 said:
8. Just what exactly is the difference between Bessemer, Crucible, and Cast Steel ?
Click to expand...

Steel is an Alloy,a mix,of Elements,primarily Iron(Fe)and Carbon(C).
(By some definition also Manganese(Mg);and commonly today many,many others,each of them changing steel in some important parameter;however those two-Fe&C-is what gives steel Hardenability,and those we're most concerned with).

Iron,as opposed to Gold,Silver,Copper and some other metals is not found in a metallic form,but must be somehow Made,processed out of ores that contain it,and normally those are some form of Oxides of iron.

In the earliest,simplest process of Bloomery furnace(aka Reduction method),iron oxide was mixed with charcoal(C),and burned using air-blast(O).In that reaction the O from oxides joined the C from charcoal,all flying off as gases leaving behind Fe.
Fe was left in the ashes of the furnace as a spongy,porous mass,cintaminated with charcoal pieces,Silica slags,dirt,ashes and all else imaginable.
But the main problem was it's C content-it was all over the map...
For tool edges we need it somewhere between 0.5 and 1%,and a bloom ranged from almost nothing to cast-iron(over 4%).

Carbon content Can be adjusted both up and down,but the operations are laborious and energy demanding.But they Were done,as people using these tools were picky about their edges...

One of these methods became Crucible steel,where carefully selected and measured ingredients were cooked up in an enclosed clay crucible(cast being just another name for it).
For technical reasons it could only be done in tiny batches of a few pounds,so a furnace load were these several rows of clay crucibles,all filled and handled by hand...Cherish those plane irons axes et c. marked "cast steel",it was produced by craftsman's hand and eye,in an incredibly tricky process,and at a great expenditure of labor and time skill....

But it was way too nit-picky and laborious,so the "Bessemer" process came along and the Industrial Age was no longer hampered by the hands-on crucible steel production.
(it's moot as to who "invented" it,the method is first mentioned in 11th century documents:),and Henry Bessemer is merely who Patented it).

The jist of it is that a large batch of ore is heated rapidly without any constraint on amount of air,heat,or C-containing fuel.With all this Carbon and heat the entire load becomes cast-iron(with Way too much C),and then a strong air-blast is blown right through the molten load,O from the blast reacting with C in cast iron,slowly reducing it to the proper content for Steel.
The point of the exercise was Reliability of that C-content adjustment,and the ability to process Massive amounts at a time...
(it hasn't changed very significantly since then,either...:).

All of the above is a Very rough/quick sketch,obviously:)
 
Operator1975 said:
Here we go -

1. Why was Plumb using one piece steel construction on axe heads by 1930, while Kelly appears to never really followed suit.....
Click to expand...
Kelly actually before TT takeover manufactured monosteel axe heads, too. They were probably not as good as Plumb's monosteel ones or lacked proper marketing.
BookReaderImages.php

https://archive.org/details/StoweSupplyCo./page/n338?q="special+analysis+steel"
Kelly's premium axes were later advertised as having bits electrically welded to soft metal body
https://bladeforums.com/threads/new...request-säter-dy.1654869/page-2#post-18946736
Operator1975 said:
5. If Collins doesn't have the massive flood of 1955, does everything change in the axe game as we know it?
Click to expand...
I seriously doubt that flood changed anything. Collins was making most of their income from foreign operations. True Temper was killing domestic axe producers. Three years after the flood Collins dismantled Warren factory, sold off equipment. If Collinsville facilities were affected by flood the common sense would be to crank the output in Warren. There was just not enough demand for their products in USA at profitable price point.

On separate note, I wonder if Bonded line of axes wasn't actually made in Warren.
 
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Square_peg said:
10 is easy to answer. The iron & coal were in Pennsylvania. Why pay to ship tons of raw material when instead you can ship pounds of product?
Click to expand...

One of several major reasons, at least. Coal and iron still got shipped all over the USA for other reasons, so that wasn't, in itself, a major barrier. But it did help as a big influencing factor along with all the others.
 
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