Butchers axe?

F

Forgery62

Joined
Dec 25, 2018
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I acquired this Underhill axe and the fellow tried to convince me it is a felling axe. What do you folks say? I also have one similar, a Birkenwalds Daisy and I know they made meat processing tools. Opinions please. It's really quite lovely!

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Single bevel, or ground on both sides ?

I don't know what purpose that poll would serve in butchering because know next to nothing about the subject, but I do know that this poll has gotta have a specific purpose.
I imagine that purpose being for striking another tool of some kind.
 
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Butcher's axes had polls, as gruesome as this sounds, to stun or kill the animal by striking it between the eyes with the poll, followed by plunging a double edged "sticking knife" into the heart (don't ask how I know this). For a look at another style of a butcher's axe see figure 26 in "An Ax to Grind" manual, the one in figure 26 came from the family farm in Wisconsin.
 
To my understanding (though I may not be wholly correct) is that meat splitting/butcher's axes are not the same as those intended for abattoir use (slaughterman's poleaxes or slaughter axes.) While hammer-poll axes like the one in "An Ax to Grind" were sometimes sold as slaughter axes, they were sold under other names, and for other purposes. A hammer was one method of stunning livestock but there were dedicated hammers made for that purpose that were more specific slaughter tools (typically referred to as "pig/sheep hammers" as far as I've seen.) In both slaughterman's poleaxes and pig hammers have a penetrating bolt on them similar to a hole punch. A rod would then be inserted into the hole after it penetrated to "pith" the brain, ensuring complete death with no chance for resuscitation.

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FTB, You answered the question when you said hammer poll axes were "sold for other purposes". What subsistence farmer/ homesteader would not want a axe he could use for butchering and other chores as well? We were so much more practical not that far back in our history. These days it seems to be a great tragic event if someone's smart phone does not work. And, NO, we don't have no stinking smart phones!
 
Not saying you’re wrong, Bernie, but I’ve always used the sticking knife to cut the animal’s jugular after hoisting it by the back legs. Have I been doing it wrong?

Parker
 
catspa said:
Not saying you’re wrong, Bernie, but I’ve always used the sticking knife to cut the animal’s jugular after hoisting it by the back legs. Have I been doing it wrong?

Parker
Click to expand...
That's the method I've most often seen described as well. A knife to the heart is generally something I see mentioned as part of hog hunting with dogs, while stunning/pithing, hanging, and slitting of the jugular as more typical for domestic livestock.
 
What we did was to stun or kill it with the poll, plunging it in the heart with an Old Hickory sticking knife to make sure it was dead so it did not thrash around and hurt one of us, then cut the jugular to bleed it out. And this was done mostly with domestic hogs.
 
Yeah, this is very fascinating.

I’m honored that knowledgeable people participate in these forums.

Somewhat gruesome, but very fascinating.
 
catspa said:
Not saying you’re wrong, Bernie, but I’ve always used the sticking knife to cut the animal’s jugular after hoisting it by the back legs. Have I been doing it wrong?

Parker
Click to expand...
Hopefully it's dead before you are hoisting. Ever wonder why It's called,"sticking" knife and not "slitting"? In any case, for bleeding out a pig the action as i know and practice it is putting the knife straight in at the area of the jugular then making a pivot from the entry in order to cut through the vein then drawing the knife straight out the entry hole. And I've only bled before and not after hanging, which is the mechanism of death. ( I suppose a knife through the hart would be as well). Not to belabor this whole diversion but these things should be spelled out and not left to vagaries, in the interest of a "clean" slaughter.
 
I grew up in a culture where meat was processed by use of an axe. That was Eastern Europe,but West of there,into Austria/Chechia/Germany the axe also played a very large role in any butchering operation.
(Using a saw,manual or mechanical,was considered Uber low-class,as the saw frays the ends of fibers making that cut of meat cook weird).
A butcher's axe is often huge-looking (and can weigh into 7,8 and even more lbs),however it's an Extremely fine tool.
In the Old Country,as dysfunctional as everything was,you'd not be allowed to produce any salable cuts using an axe before at least 2 years' training,that was very vigorous,as in people getting booted out as hopeless,and relegated to other processing stages.
There were even competitive events,everything aimed at precision,it was common at those where a match was chopped in half length-wise (and a soviet-made wooden match was a skimpy affair,Not your "strike-anywhere" gauge by no means).

The axe in OP looks weird to me,sorry. Not so much the poll,although i don't believe i've ever seen a hammer-poll on butcher axe. German ones have an odd,extra-mass poll,specific to their butcher axe,but it doesn't stick out the back,spreading upwards instead.
Again,butchering with an axe is very much a fine art,that begins with grinding and sharpening. That Underhill is certanly not sharpened for meat (a proper shape is very similar to a cleaver edge,unsurprisingly,a robust convex. Razor-sharp,yet sturdy enough to split some of the biggest bomes in a beef,like femoral joint (those are poor people and frugal,that little old lady would expect the butcher to split the soup bones for her,that was a part of the service at the butcher's. (Splitting large bones was an art yet beyond that of chopping other meat cuts)).

The haft is weirdy long,i cannot imagine just how such tool was used,unless as a carcass-splitter (that was normally a specific tool,like an elongated heavy cleaver).

There's no top-down photo,but looks like that axe is way too heavy of a cross-section to be a meat-axe...Butcher's axes are very slender,there's no chip-parting function involved.

I think the OP axe is something specific to a particular American industrial quirk,some processing technique not close to the consumer-end,but deep in the bowels of meat-packing plant somewhere...
 
P.S.

Here's an example of an Eastern European meat axe.

It don't look none too slick,'cos it hales from a tyrannical state where the ruler couldn't care less how the peons live or eat let alone how they process their grub.The factories did produce some,and for the most part they weren't much better-looking.

However,this tool is All business. It was fabricated by a guy who's shop is on the grounds of "Privoz", the famous Market in Odesa,Ukraine,he works there permanently serving the butchers of that market.
Odesa is an ancient trade center,incredibly multi-cultural,and the people there are extremely picky about their food.
They shop every day,at first light,and many would not even look at the meat that is not still warm from being freshly-killed(they've a term for it there that i don't know in English).
A butcher is a Very prominent functionary in that culture,a family considers itself lucky if they could scrape together enough dough to bribe their kid's way into an apprenticeship in that mighty Guild :)

So in spite of a sloppy-looking fabrication this is a fine instrument. When a person asks for 450 g. of that piece over there the Privoz butcher weilding this tool whacks off a piece that weighs Exactly that.
It's an axe for lamb and pork,the one for beef would be larger,and have a slightly radiused blade. For smaller carcasses only one decisive cut is made,thus the strict straightness of edge.

The terrific skill of splitting large bones has to do with a glancing-kind of a blow,as the edge of this is quite hard (and any chips would dishonor one as a butcher forever).

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Wow. I’ve never used an axe in meat processing. Usually I kill the (domestic livestock) animal with a 158 grain hollow point* down the ear canal. Probably too much, but I don’t worry about it thrashing around. Then I hook the hocks and hoist it, then cut the throat to bleed it out. After skinning, gutting and removing the head, I cut down the spine with a power saw if available, manual saw if not. I may wrap and hang the sides to age a couple days in the late fall or winter.

I butcher a small animal (say under 300 lbs) by hanging a side and taking off my cuts from the bottom up. Larger animal I’ll hang a quarter. I cut the meat with a knife and the bone with a saw. Don’t have to make it salable, just edible. Never have sold a cut of meat.

When I hunted, I just used the same sequence for game animals, less the aging and always quartered them.

Hopelessly lower class. But my meat doesn’t cook weird, or maybe it does and it’s just my normal.

*100 years ago or so, my granddad shot them down the ear with a .22, and that was how I learned. But I had a bad experience with a wary cow who tossed her head, and ever since I’ve erred on the side of more kill.

Parker
 
I Though we've talked about all this before...https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/info-on-butchers-axes.1557811/

There're some Scandinavian ones Ernest posted in Post #18 that have hammer-like polls almost like this Underhill...

catspa said:
Hopelessly lower class.
Click to expand...

Probably more like the Upper one,since you can afford to trash the head!:)

Catspa,the differences are all mostly Cultural...People have this tendency,when they've been doing something a certain way/a certain amount of time,they grow attached to it being just So.

Like when an average American goes to McDonald's and orders a hamburger,he expects it to be cooked,and to taste,et c.,in a certain way.
Someone from the Congo would view it differently.
(And i personally know someone from Ukraine who after forcing himself to eat a part of one vomited violently and uncontrollably...:)

In a village where i live many older guys use nothing but a small-ish pocket-knife to butcher a moose. As in the entire way,down to edible portions. That's just the way they roll...
(i myself use anything from my 10" fish-knives to a Sawzall,not being of Any culture to speak of. Must say that my cooking is as indifferent as my butchering:)).
 
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