Not an axe but related??

The inside of the hook may have been thinned by abrasion in work. Not a typical wear pattern but we don't know what it was used for.
 
Yeah, if your look at the image above it's clear that the weak spot is the ring and the eye it's attached to. The ring will have been forge welded and there's always the possibiity of a weak weld. And there's something going on at the businees end (load bearing end) of the eye. It almost looks like the poll socket was an afterthought and forge welded on later. This may have weakened the eye.

I mean, all rings back then were going to be forge-welded, so that's kind of a given. It's just a single link of chain, basically. Clearly it was strong enough for whatever it was used for, though, as it's not damaged. And both the ring and eye appear to be quite substantial.
 
Maybe some close-ups will help. I've figured out how to make my Samsung do macro. Here goes:
20200330_202143.jpg
20200330_200748.jpg
20200330_200841.jpg
20200330_200953.jpg
20200330_200940.jpg
20200330_200858.jpg
20200330_200926.jpg 20200330_200907.jpg 20200330_201010.jpg
20200330_200830.jpg
First of all, the sharpness on the inside of the curve was forged in, not ground. The hook, eye and ring are all very substantially built. The socket is crudely built and wimpy. There are virtually no signs of wear. This device saw very, very little time in use. The point of the hook is relatively sharp and well reinforced. This hook was intended to be placed using the socket, ie on the end of a stick. The ring was NOT intended to permit a rope to easily slide through under great tension, as in lifting a load. I think a rope was either tied on to the ring, or looped through it before the hook was lifted into position. Perhaps a loop of rope might have been used to then raise a pulley system up into position, or maybe not. Once in its working position, a great amount of tension could have been applied to the ring, causing the point to dig in to something like wood, or causing the sharp inside curve of the hook to bite into something like a tree branch.
I plan to take my one-of-a-kind hook into the timber, attach it to my 100ft long rope come-along, and apply a thousand pounds of tension to a stubborn tree, and persuade it to fall contrary to its lean. If the tree doesn't fall on my head and kill me, I'll report back to you all.
Thanks for all your interest and input. It's been a blast for me! T-A
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the new pics. It's definitely sharper than I thought.

Do you use Maasdam rope puller? Handy unit for pulling trees, isn't it?
 
Great tool. I bought a 150' rope and a snatch block to double the pulling power.

2.jpg

4.jpg
 
Be careful, falling a tree against it's lean by pulling from high on the tree is a lot more dangerous than wedging against the lean. You increase the chances of barberchair or slabbing.

Just in case anyone else is as slow as I am. At first I thought Old Axeman's above quote was in reference to the image of square-peg pulling the stump. Then I realized that he's actually talking about the OP's original intent to use the cool forged hook things to get ropes into trees to pull on them.

I TOTALLY agree that wedges are better than ropes for felling trees

I used to pull on trees with ropes and a come along when felling and sometimes it does work well, but once the tree moves a little bit, then the line goes slack and there goes your control - and scary things can happen. Wedges are amazing and when used properly give you a lot of control.

I recently took a FS sawyers class and the instructor was really advocating felling in this way:
1. cut an open face cut
2. horizontal plunge cut in line with the open angle of the face cut, leaving 10% of the circumference as a hinge, and also leaving 10% of holding or trigger wood at the back.
3. If the tree is going to go where you want, just keep the bar in the bore cut, yell Timber and come right on out the back, and the tree goes plop.
4. if the tree has some back or side lean and you need to pursuade the tree to go where you want it. pull the bar out of the bore cut, and pound a wedge in one or both sides of the bore cut.
5. then from the back side, cut your trigger or holding wood. if your wedges were pounded in right, the kerf should at the least open a little if the tree doesn't come on down.
6. if the tree doesn't fall, keep pounding wedges until it does.

this gives you more control than if you did a traditional face cut and then come straight in from the back towards your hinge - especially on smaller trees. as soon as you start cutting in the back you have less control over it as you've now cut in on both sides of the tree and the tree could lean back on your saw before you get a chance to get a wedge in - or on a smaller tree you might not have enough room to be pounding a wedge in enough to life the tree and still have room to be cutting towards the hinge.

HOWEVER, for other pulling uses, I have a wyeth-scott more power puller and that thing is a hoss!! and the amsteel blue cable is so much better than the horrible wound steel cable that's always sending little cut wire strands into your hands.
 
Lots of good safety advice here today. I have lots more to share on the topic of learners, although my experience is very limited.
Now, about the hook, I think it's safe to say that, for whatever it was intended, it probably didn't work very well,. Otherwise there would be more than one of them in existence, don't you think? T-A
 
"...Now, about the hook, I think it's safe to say that, for whatever it was intended, it probably didn't work very well,. Otherwise there would be more than one of them in existence, don't you think? T-A..."

Well,Sir,in all fairness i don't think we can assume even That.
It could easily be common enough piece of rigging from some industry that we haven't guessed at
(since 42 brought up farming,just think of the Myriad things it can be?Even a weird part of some plowing/de-thatching process,like back-plowing peanuts or such outlandish(to me in the sub-arctic)thing...

Moreover,it could've been custom-forged for a situation that is no more....(entire trades are going extinct complete with their tool sets...would we recognise a wheelright's spoke-bender,and other pretty specialised tools?).

Yet again it could be a Frankenstein of some sort easily enough.
For a few years i've been busily decomposing this huge contraption found in nearby woods.It's a massive,dozer-drawn bob-sled,that the military used in early 40-ies to drag aircraft landing strip metal here to start building a Land-lease base.
It was welded up by soldiers using 40-ies technology,arc welding,high-speed drilling,et c.
But what it's made Of is much older machinery,many parts of it forged by hand,many from other,now unrecognisable devices,punched holes,massive forgewelds,all kinds of industrial archaeology...

I'm like giant Fe-seeking microbe,forever seeking and digesting steel objects.I've come across stuff hybridized from parts each dating back to horse-drawn to steam to gasoline engine eras,all often rolled into a single mechanism.....
 
Moreover,it could've been custom-forged for a situation that is no more...
True, it might have been very functional for a task that is/was very unusual or even unique. I can buy that. But, if that's the case, we might never know the truth, and that is a very unsettling thought. Inquiring minds...
Thanks for being involved in the discussion. T-A
 
I have lots more to share
The last time I had to pull on a tree I was cutting, it was already on the ground, but its many branches arching up high in the air made it difficult and dangerous to cut up. I didn't get a before pic, but here's what's left:
20200315_132205-1.jpg
And so I used some persuasion to roll the tree, bringing the branches I was struggling to reach closer to the ground. Here's what I used for persuasion:
JPEG_20200331_160056_3185518630203322761.jpg
It's rated at 9000lb and has about 110 feet of cable. Had I been unable to get near the tree with my truck, I would have used the rope come-along. BY the time I'm done cutting, splitting and stacking, I should have 6-8 week"s worth of firewood to keep us warm for winter 2021-22.
No, I didn't use my fancy hook, I was able to chain up to the tree.
This is only a small fraction of my harvest:
20200315_133110.jpg
I'll have a lot of splitting to keep me busy this spring. Thanks for watching. T-A
 
That's such a big,beautiful hardwood tree...gee whiz,it's such a neat looking place...NO idea what them trees may be(oak?),but they're beautiful,and so effing enticing as far as the potential of cutting cruks out of them for some Very creative framing...
 
The tree on the ground with the dog on it is a white oak, which is really good firewood. better than red oak.
 
That's a considerably thinner edge geometry than I could see at first. Maybe an old tree limb shear of sorts? Pole used to position the tool with a rope tied to the ring, and then the blade pulled down through the limb by pulling the rope?
 
The tree on the ground with the dog on it is a white oak, which is really good firewood. better than red oak.

Thank you!..Well,no wonder they used them all up in England for shipbuilding,look at all them knees and bends...

Maybe an old tree limb shear of sorts? Pole used to position the tool with a rope tied to the ring, and then the blade pulled down through the limb by pulling the rope?

Pesonally,i think that is the best idea Yet-could this actually be the proverbial Hook,from the "by hook or by crook"?...The ancient fuel gathering rule on feudal lands?!
 
HOWEVER, for other pulling uses, I have a wyeth-scott more power puller and that thing is a hoss!! and the amsteel blue cable is so much better than the horrible wound steel cable that's always sending little cut wire strands into your hands.

I have a Little Mule lineman's puller that is a brute but it's wound with steel cable. I like that AmSteel Blue. I've considered re-spooling mine with it. Once a wire or two break I probably will.

I use Samson Pro-Master with my Maasdam. I like that it takes some stretch. You can load it up and it will pull the tree a good distance before it goes slack.
 
Back
Top