It followed me home (Part 2)

[Ernest DuBois]

It is not clear to me that Mercer was actually looking for a connection to Europe.


Bob

It's why I pointed out the possible ambiguity of the sentence quoted. The one may not see the sought after connection while the other will. I guess we can never know the intended meaning. Even so, a connection is clearly implied and subsequently confirmed.
Don't worry AH I think you, anyway, are a bit more sensible than to argue the reverse migration theory. Not to be too anal or anything but at the same time I wouldn't want to dismiss the distinction, but in the text "holzaxt" is used at least twice that I can see.

I jump at the "Holz axt" being considered the wrong term with us here. "Holzaxe" is what the American German immigrants called that style, regardless of resulting forged forms.

HolzAXE? believe me I'm familiar with the mixed language, it's what's spoken at my house.

Still seeing this example on the display board out of das Vaterland I had to revise my first impression that it was some kind of mongrel aberration and see it now as the accurate reproduction it is. Or, even the possibility it was in fact brought from Germany in the migration. But then I guess it wouldn't really belong in a book, American Axes, would it, and the title would be something like, Axes Found in America.

 

[Meek1]

You got yourself a really great haul there!

The '44 Plumb with scabbard is very nice along with the Plumb USA half hatchet... putting those two in the same WWII era, that Plumb scout type nail puller hatchet most likely falls into the same era.

That Richards Wilcox vise has me most curious, really cool.

I can never have to many good working files at the ready!

Great holiday score!

A step wedge...keep it, reuse it in the plumb even. Super find!

I got that Richards Wilcox oiled up, new handle and mounted last night. The mechanics of this thing are fascinating to me. The 3 way split "washer" is just amazing that operates the quick release.

 

[ithinkverydeeply]

Anyway to measure how deep the bevels are?

LoL. I don’t have the best gauge to measure them but I’ll see if I can get some idea... There seems to be some variance. This one is only 3lb but the larger Dayton Perfect has deeper bevels and a heavier ridge between them.

Huh, I miss perceived the look of the larger axe.
Both the 1889 patent Perfects have 7-8mm deep bevels, despite the one being a substantially larger axe.
Oddly the 1885 patent has 8-9mm deep bevels but it also has the different, more conical, bevel shape.

 

[rjdankert]

I jump at the "Holz axt" being considered the wrong term with us here. "Holzaxe" is what the American German immigrants called that style, regardless of resulting forged forms.

It's all semantics in the way of talking about the significance of the tool that he shared in reference to where it comes from.

Please correct me if I misinterpret your meaning here. Put another way, Mercer uses the term "Holzaxt" as merely a placeholder.

I don't get the impression that Mercer insists that that pattern must absolutely be called a "Holzaxt".

After all, Mercer also used the term "Split Axe" to describe the pattern.

Bob

 

[rjdankert]

Don't worry AH I think you, anyway, are a bit more sensible than to argue the reverse migration theory.

Sorry if this post has a bad tone to anyone, but I believe it is sensible (and maybe an obligation) to NOT point out an illogically based theory. Although the pattern in question may have had it's roots prior to it's appearance in PA, no evidence has yet been put fourth in this thread to demonstrate that this is actually the case.


Bob

 

[Ernest DuBois]

I know it and it has me fairly baffled this defensive poster posture aka dpp syndrome. And you are right, no evidence here of the providence of this axe type.

 

[Agent_H]

Please correct me if I misinterpret your meaning here. Put another way, Mercer uses the term "Holzaxt" as merely a placeholder.

I don't get the impression that Mercer insists that that pattern must absolutely be called a "Holzaxt".

After all, Mercer also used the term "Split Axe" to describe the pattern.

Bob

Given the populace who used it in the US it seems likely the pattern came with them and for whatever reason there aren’t many around or they disappeared, being replaced with something else. I’m good with whatever it gets called as it certainly looks like the klienhacke in the display Ernest shared. I just felt the thing got discounted in conversation due to name.

I was picturing conversation on it more about it being used on wood gluts, what the beak on it was designed for, what type of tool a guy would use to pry it out or was it used to pry something else out, the eye shape, whether they are rare or common, bit construction, etc.

The one that ITVD posted sure looks like one of the type that Mercer called the Holzaxe and attempted to ID according to what you also shared.
I imagine Mercer’s internet coverage was spotty at the time.

 

[Agent_H]

And you’re both right.

 

[rjdankert]

http://www.mueller-hammerwerk.at/en/splitting-axe-t-0217.html
re Article No 40:

4 kilogram = 8.818 490 487 4 lb​

Bob

 

[Agent_H]

http://www.mueller-hammerwerk.at/en/splitting-axe-t-0217.html
re Article No 40:

4 kilogram = 8.818 490 487 4 lb​

Bob

Interesting. It looks like the rear of the handle sits flush to the extended poll on that one. Extra surface area- to add strength when prying it out or for striking? Maybe both?

 

[Fmont]

I imagine Mercer’s internet coverage was spotty at the time.

Lol

 

[Ernest DuBois]

Here I hoisted up a picture from a kind of ebay.
The Müeller is a later version of the Himmelberger Zeughammerwerk, same company more or less.
The axe type is common enough that I found the one pictured which is now for sale in about a one minute search.

 

[Ernest DuBois]

I imagine Mercer’s internet coverage was spotty at the time.
Lol

Well, Henry Mercer died in 1930 if I’m not mistaken.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Chapman_Mercer

 

[Agent_H]

Huh, I miss perceived the look of the larger axe.
Both the 1889 patent Perfects have 7-8mm deep bevels, despite the one being a substantially larger axe.
Oddly the 1885 patent has 8-9mm deep bevels but it also has the different, more conical, bevel shape.

Maybe due to its diminutive size at 3lbs?
Is there record of the sizes and patterns the Perfect Perfects were offered in?

Like the cruiser sized Raven are scarcer than full sized double bits, does that hold true with the smaller single bits?

I’m trying to picture anything smaller with the scripture on one side.

 

[ithinkverydeeply]

Maybe due to its diminutive size at 3lbs?
Is there record of the sizes and patterns the Perfect Perfects were offered in?

Like the cruiser sized Raven are scarcer than full sized double bits, does that hold true with the smaller single bits?

I’m trying to picture anything smaller with the scripture on one side.

Well at hand I have a 1927 Supplee-Biddle catalog showing several patterns. Some like Daytons started at 3lb but others like Kentuckys started at 3.5lb

1908 Honeyman Hardware shows a 2 1/4 lb boys axe that is hand hammered and beveled. But I think I heard they didn’t have the long script on the boys axe. (I don’t know though.)

 

[Square_peg]

Holzaxe simple means "forest axe" or "wood axe". The term definitely came to America with many immigrants. Any woodsman's axe can rightly be called a holz axt.

Only in the colloquial usage.
The axes like mine shown by Mercer and Kauffman are a specific form. They are writing about a very unique pattern for splitting. Clearly specialized in form and function with the extended poll. Or as Mercer wrote “The Holzaxt is a rare tool which the writer, after years of search, thus far has failed to find it anywhere in the United States except among the Pennsylvania Germans....”

I humbly disagree with this.

Kliebhacke is cleaving axe if there were any question, holzaxt is so vague it make no sense and Dutch is English.

And I agree with this. I believe "holz(t) axe (axt)" was a generic term applied to any woodsman's axe by German immigrants in colonial America. Let me explain.

Here's an axe I received a couple years ago - I think from JBLyttle. It's a well used hammer poll axe, the tool that would have been used as a felling axe with the hardened poll enabling it's use for driving the steel felling wedges of the time. It came with a sticker on it calling it a "holtz axe". My curiosity caused me to research "holtz axe" and what I found was at first confusing. Here are a few things I found that were called holz axes (pick your spelling).

First here's mine.

It's certainly an American pattern early hammer poll felling axe. Now here's another I found listed as a holz axe:

It's a heavy polled felling axe. It appears to have a forged welded carbon steel poll and shows wear from driving wedges - consistent with begin used as a felling axe.

But here's another I found listed as a "holtz axe/splitting axe with heavy back and original handle". This one looks like some of the splitting axes being discussed here.

Researching the term I found this definition for "Holzaxt":

Felling axe. And 'Holz' translates to 'wood'.
So it's my belief that colonial German Americans used the term generically to mean "wood axe", either for felling or splitting.

 

[ithinkverydeeply]

I’m not sure what this is about anymore.

Are we saying that the vintage Holzaxt described in the literature is no different than any old axe you could buy today?

Or that the authors are wrong and that axe shouldn’t be called a Holtzaxt?

It’s not American with Austrian influences it’s just a bastardized knockoff of an Austrian axe?

I don’t care which way the migration was, either way it demonstrates the Deutsch-Pennsylvania pedigree of the axe.

...The claim isn’t that German blacksmiths in Pennsylvania didn’t make axes like this is it??

This seems like an exercise in semantics to say the authors were wrong to take away the name of an axe described in these books. That’s fine, we can play that game, it just leaves us without a name for the blacksmith made Deutsch-Pennsylvania splitting axe talked about in the literature.

 

[ithinkverydeeply]

Well at hand I have a 1927 Supplee-Biddle catalog showing several patterns. Some like Daytons started at 3lb but others like Kentuckys started at 3.5lb

1908 Honeyman Hardware shows a 2 1/4 lb boys axe that is hand hammered and beveled. But I think I heard they didn’t have the long script on the boys axe. (I don’t know though.)

Another curious thing about these old Perfect axes, are the rounded bits, particularly on the older ones.
You often hear people poo-poo them as “having no bit left”. But look how little bit they had to begin with!? Especially the 1885 patent with the conical shape to it.
The bevels ends right there at the blade!?! And what’s up with the pre-rounded heel and toe?

 

[Fmont]

It's essentially the definition of semantics. Language is one of the first things to be influenced with cultural exchanges, and terminology even within an established language varies from place to place, called a dialect. In this country is it sheetrock or drywall? A spanner or a wrench?

It's the object that's interesting to me. And it's interesting to me that Pennsylvania Germans just started to use the colloquial term holzaxt. With the scarcity of information, figuring out how that came to be is probably an exercise in futility.

But foreign influence in domestic ax patterns is really interesting to me. I find it fascinating to wonder about immigrants who added their historical knowledge to the evolution of North American axe patterns.

 

[Fmont]

The small amount of bit on those axes has always struck me as well.