Hewing Hatchet edge shape

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Downwindtracker2

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Mar 20, 2019
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I've always called them carpenter's hand axes, they are flat on one side with the bevel on the other, like a one handed small broad axe. Hatchet sized. Bevel is on the right side, flat on the left side. I picked one up at the fleamarket recently for $10, rusty with a couple of notches in the blade , like someone was cutting a hard screw. This one has red epoxy suggesting maybe Plumb, but no red stain or makers mark. It was sharpened both sides, no surprise there, straight, slightly down at the toe. I think it needs to be shaped, as well as being sharpened. I need help from an experts here. After four google searches, I did find an image of a Plumb, it sure looks like it. THX

I've been enjoying the reading.
 
Downwindtracker2 said:
I've always called them carpenter's hand axes, they are flat on one side with the bevel on the other, like a one handed small broad axe. Hatchet sized. Bevel is on the right side, flat on the left side. I picked one up at the fleamarket recently for $10, rusty with a couple of notches in the blade , like someone was cutting a hard screw. This one has red epoxy suggesting maybe Plumb, but no red stain or makers mark. It was sharpened both sides, no surprise there, straight, slightly down at the toe. I think it needs to be shaped, as well as being sharpened. I need help from an experts here. After four google searches, I did find an image of a Plumb, it sure looks like it. THX

I've been enjoying the reading.
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Can you post some pictures? Also what specific tasks do you intend use it for?
 
My computer skills involve looking for the keys ! Sorry no photos. But here is what I found https://clutchaxes.com/product/septls18411554-broad-hatchets/

I had a riggers axe, Plumb, which I think is the proper name until it got stolen. I used it in sawmill timber construction, for both trimming and driving spikes. I also found it handy to shape the starter board in built in place concrete forms when you had really bad footing. But here's a carpenter story Scotty told me. It was the late '70s and Scotty was in his 50s. Scotty had apprenticed in Glasgow, we would call it finish carpenter. One time they fitting out a ship and his journeyman came by and told him it was quitting time. " I can't, I got to finish fitting this door." ( they don't make ships square) His journeyman took out his hand axe and trimmed the door like it was planed.
 
The one I found has straight, not diamond, ? shoulders ?.like in the ad. So the epoxy permabond goes back sometime. If my find is a Plumb, I wonder when they switched to straight up sides? I've always liked the balance of Plumb hammers. BTW.

Pretty slick hatchet work !!
 
Thanks for the encouragement . I put an edge on it. I think I must have ground off 1/2" at one end to get rid of the back bevel, curse the clown, and the angle. It felt like that anyway. It's now parallel to the handle with slight cambering at the ends. I ground the edge to a 25 degree angle with a flatter secondary bevel , 45ish. Good steel, it did a number on a couple of used files I used for the final shaping. They are in the waste metal pail, now. Almost shiny enough to shave with.I also sanded the split and grey handle, then tung oiled it. The back side had pitting that I didn't get polished out. I've got to get myself a real metal belt for the 6x48 someday. And the grinding had almost as many facets as my wife's diamond. chuckle. A bit rough and ready.
 
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