Dad's old axe

Wild Willie

Wild Willie

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I brought the head of my dad's old axe head home to re-hang today. He's had this since I was just a sprout, and I clearly remember breaking the handle splitting wood when I was 9 or 10 (I'm 33 now). I asked him about it after re-hafting a true temper axe I picked up last week. I don't have a scale but it falls between my gransfors bruks small forest axe ant the 3 1/4 pound true temper I just bought. 1630796771202694171149.jpg

I apologize for my bad picture, but all I have to work with is my phone.

It appears to read:
Fulton
Special
Extra quality
FULLY
Hand crafted

I can see the temper line in person, but it doesn't look the greatest in the photo. Around the bottom of the stamp there's lines leading down to a star on either side. I've oiled it and scrubbed it with some fine steel wool. I plan on hewing out a new handle for it from ash (my best viable option from what I have available). All I hope to find is some information about this oldie. All I could dig up was Fulton was contracted to sears for some time. It's obviously not the fines specimen, but there's family history here, and my dad is 53 so he's not too old to appreciate a few more years with this, and to be quite honest I feel like I owe him the helve...
 
That is a VERY cool axe head! And I think it's in pretty great shape for it's age. It's certianly is much older than your dad - possibly twice his age. Here is an ad from 1911.



I imagine it's not less than a 3lb head. What are the dimensions? length bit to heel and bit length?

I don't know your dad's preferences, but if it were me, I'd put that head on a 28" to 30" octagon handle - just like in the ad. The octagon shape is actually super easy to do, and I've had a lot of success making nice even flats with just a simple 4 in hand. Just remember that the flats don't go all the way to the end of the handle. A lot of people miss that detail these days - but if you look at original old octagon handles, the flats never go all the way to the end - they transition into a oval handle before the swell.
 
FLINT77 said:
That is a VERY cool axe head! And I think it's in pretty great shape for it's age. It's certianly is much older than your dad - possibly twice his age. Here is an ad from 1911.



I imagine it's not less than a 3lb head. What are the dimensions? length bit to heel and bit length?

I don't know your dad's preferences, but if it were me, I'd put that head on a 28" to 30" octagon handle - just like in the ad. The octagon shape is actually super easy to do, and I've had a lot of success making nice even flats with just a simple 4 in hand. Just remember that the flats don't go all the way to the end of the handle. A lot of people miss that detail these days - but if you look at original old octagon handles, the flats never go all the way to the end - they transition into a oval handle before the swell.
Click to expand...
Thank you for that! The measurements I come up with are a 4.5 inch bit, and about 7.5 inches from the bit to the poll... I'm going to have to dig up a scale but around 3 pounds sounds right. We obviously used it to pound some wedges back in the day, but it was just a tool then. I now look at at it as a treasure, the bit is hard... It skates the file I've been using for my gransfors axe. I'm definitely excited to make a helve for this, and I'm going to research the octagon handle stuff so I can do that. The handle I broke almost 20 years ago was a regular old hickory thing, he's had this so long I don't know if he even remembers where it came from.
 
That's a great piece of information, I'll definitely be putting that to use. Thanks!
 
I can't believe even in 1911 the axe was only 55 cents, if only I could go back in time and send them 55 Indian head pennies.
 
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