R&D,18th c.American axe

Fmont said:
Thanks again, sincerely. I must say you're really starting to produce examples that are the spitting image of the period pieces I've seen. Can't wait to see what you come up with in the fall! I've some carbon steel I could send up your way as well, and if you want to borrow a Stohler to look at I'd send it with. You've no shortage of forum support!
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Fmont,i appreciate your guys' attention and support tremendously...Couldn't do it without you guys.Thanks for your kind offer,it'll probably not be necessary to ship a real Stohler back and forth,but i should digest the information obtain so far(it takes a while to sink in,much of it coming from muscle and other primordial senses:)),and i may beg you to take some specific measurements,to further nail down the subtle details.
If we can,lets keep this kinda simmering on...I'm talking in part to myself here,as i often Loathe to talk about axes when away from the forge,it's too painful...But there's tons of homework to do,literally,i'm very bad about studying up,and this here Really helps.
 
Square_peg said:
At what color heat did the seams start to separate? That's a valuable piece of knowledge.
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Very good question.
In theory,one Never forges any welded areas at anything below Welding heat,period,axiomatic.
But Heat is not the whole story either(i DID forge too cold doubtless;with material as nice and compliant as this WI one tends to try to get away with More,and again,raising those very high heats,into yellows,is not easy for me with spruce charcoal).

I'll sound weird for a minute here,please bear with me:Steel is a crystalline lattice(with imperfections et c.,but on the whole).
As such,the manner in which it transmits signal,energy,Vibration,is very important to keep in mind.
(it applies to welds for sure,but also to forging in general:On Can think of forging as squishing about plastic material such as clay,it is partially correct.But the entire picture is closer to a breaking shot in a game of pool:Your hammer-blow imparts an impulse that traverses material,restructuring it).

So simply put it's Harmonics,and steel is super sensitive to it,it really being the very nature of forging.
Welds in particular are Super vulnerable,early on,when they're fresh,those molecules are exchanging their electrons,swapping them about.Steel is fairly active at room T,diffusion continues at anything above zero Kelvin,(what is it,-200-some F?)

In practical terms what it all means is that a forging loves a Definite,Decisive blows,as hard as possible,and as few of them.
In and out,high T,tons of energy applied in a strictly right direction,and leave it Be!!!:)

So when i get to pecking about in the finishing stages,vibration,bouncing,all those less-than-confident,exploratory blows,it damages the laminate.

That is why what we do here together is so important-we're trying to re-establish the sequence,the shortest,most no-nonsense path to the desired shape.
Smiths of old did not fluff about(in part because of all that,they knew it perfectly well,felt it with their hammers).

The central chunk of poll is another kind of WI,and i've a couple curious photos on that subject,if Imgur's willing..
But it's true that the strongest welds are between dissimilar parts,it would've been wiser to use something else.
 
This is more for the general data-bank,not directly related to welds between parts of a composite.
https://imgur.com/agqsfzC
In the photo is the strap that i'm using for the outer jacket.
I got it off that old winch,and the way it was used it had a sharp bend on each end,like an Omega symbol.
I tried to get the most out the material,and so went to straighten one of these over 90 bends.And though i had it at a very sufficiently-high heat,that is what it did.
We could never tell for Sure what happened,maybe that bend was made too cold originally;but the failure is obviously catastrophic.
So one thing is obvious,this stuff is already an unpredictable composite,iron,silica,oxides,and some other things probably.
That too has a bearing on handling it,how much reshaping it'll take,what will end up inside of it in the end,even if it's not outright visible.

And here's what i used for the middle layer(i've showed this stuff before,that fracture i made myself as a test)
https://imgur.com/x3KB1zf
It is very similar to the other stuff,and possibly that was a mistake.
Later i remembered that in trying this stuff out previously i couldn't make it stick to itself.

I do wish i was more methodical in my experiments,and also to have much more time for it,darn it...It's so totally worthwhile.
 
jake pogg said:
I tried to get the most out the material,and so went to straighten one of these over 90 bends.And though i had it at a very sufficiently-high heat,that is what it did.
We could never tell for Sure what happened,maybe that bend was made too cold originally;but the failure is obviously catastrophic.
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This is why most modern smiths, or i should say, those doing paid work, will work only with known new materials. Too much lost labor goes into figuring out what a particular material will do and how it will respond.

But we learn in those moments when things don't go as planned. And with experience are more likely to work through them. I imagine that smiths of old saved many projects that a modern smith would have started over.
 
Another note on all of the above.
I said that i altered the sequence obvious in Mercer forgings.
They show the poll already welded,incl.plate,Before the blade steel inserted.

Well,it makes a huge difference:That smith took his welds one by one,properly attending to each.

I did Not,putting together the entire composite instead,bringing All welds to heat at the same time.
However,i could only ATTEND to each one at a time,so i chose the more important-the edge-and spent 3 welding heats dealing with it properly.
On first one of these i Closed the poll weld,just snugged it tight to prevent oxidation,hoping that it'll fly.Properly attending to it only after those 3 initial heats of edge steel.
Well,Very likely the Mercer fellow did what he did for a Reason!:)
 
Square_peg said:
This is why most modern smiths, or i should say, those doing paid work, will work only with known new materials. Too much lost labor goes into figuring out what a particular material will do and how it will respond.
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Totally,man.It makes utter practical sense.And even so it is,and always remains the "Craftsmanship of Risk".

But practicality is Way behind us(it's with machinery and production scale et c. for many decades now).
And so we,(a bunch of crazies everyone will admit i think),raise the bar,'cos we ain't got nuffink to loose...
The old materials,the patterns of old,they all have Such potential,that it's worth all the risk,and the crazy amount of work...
(...Moritori te salutum...:))
 
True to my resolve i've stayed out of the forge today...

But,i can't just go it cold turkey,so took apart the motor for PH,and by golly,it came to life!
Then i could resist it no longer,and built a new bracket and mounted it.
Now the old critter is a day or two from actually running...https://imgur.com/mzdCo5e

It's a neat thing,saves so much work,and time,and allows for reforging some large/awkward steel pieces into usable stock..Will make it Way easier to sneak into the forge here and there,and get something done on the sly...
 
jake pogg said:
True to my resolve i've stayed out of the forge today...

But,i can't just go it cold turkey,so took apart the motor for PH,and by golly,it came to life!
Then i could resist it no longer,and built a new bracket and mounted it.
Now the old critter is a day or two from actually running...https://imgur.com/mzdCo5e

It's a neat thing,saves so much work,and time,and allows for reforging some large/awkward steel pieces into usable stock..Will make it Way easier to sneak into the forge here and there,and get something done on the sly...
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That is so cool! But I’m imagining it’s hard to be sneaky when using it. ;)
 
Power hammers are a terrible curse...You perpetually keep ogling and lusting after bigger and Bigger ones...:(...(of course especially if yours is a 25...:)...I'd bet Stohler had some horrific huge ugly helve,in some hundreds of pounds falling weight!:)

It's a sweet machine,i do love it and appreciate all the work it's ever done.And having gone a few years without it i'm Really happy it's coming alive...

But there's no way around having to become an increasingly better smith.LG has Such a puny clearance(it was built specifically for plow-share drawing),that inventing and building top tools for it is an extreme challenge.
No hope to ever slit or drift with it(big limitation),but,yeah,we should be cooking with gas now:)
 
I don't know about Mr. Stohler, but I do have a picture of Mr. McKinnon (the Rockaway inventor) with his power hammer and shop if that helps.
15977606-294806947588502-7227477368985281540-n.jpg
 
phantomknives said:
mortise axes are weird, a lot of people around here mistake them as ice axes and will deny anything about them being a mortise axe
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I've found the same to be true with masting axes vs. old broad axes. I think I'm going to start a post to see if we can reach a consensus on those.
I think I've only ever seen one pattern of ice axe! Screenshot_20190815-095118_Chrome.jpg
And the rest, except turpentine, are usually odd looking(to me anyway) and mortise axes.
 
jake pogg said:
Thanks,that is So cool...Beautiful tool,dirtiest iron ever!:)...
Seller unsurprisingly is in Annville,PA...
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I assumed cracks and wavy delamination close to the poll pointed to misuse of the axe. I thought the axe at some point belonged to somebody with poor aim. He kept messing his morise cuts and opted to use this axe in hot chisel fashion using mallet or even sledge hammer.
phantomknives said:
mortise axes are weird, a lot of people around here mistake them as ice axes and will deny anything about them being a mortise axe
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People believe what they want to believe. I have run into general contractor with 35 years experience who was 100 percent sure his barrel auger was some kind of timber framing tool. :)
heavy-duty-large-antique-bung-hole_1_6df86b5589ec976df1beb474cc4486d0.jpg

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/heavy-duty-large-antique-bung-hole-1901862115

Few months back I bought a saw with cool, cast iron handle. Because of small teeth it never crossed my mind that it was Ice saw.
It is similar to this one:
antique-ice-saws-used-saw-lake-ice_1_79588c2e72b56fc0e9e720e91fc02d5b.jpg

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-ice-saws-used-saw-lake-ice-1924716491
 
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