Thank You!! Designed for hard use. The blade might be outstanding, too.FWIW
Bob
Speaking of the origins of personal knowledge - how you know what you know - and the use of these, so-called mortising axes I recall Eric Sloan's illustration depicting their use just the way you describe, wailing away on the poll with a wood striker. In and of themselves these axes make no sense to me. Only when they are qualified as used to make a mortise in posts for fencing does it begin to seem plausible. In other words for the crudest kind of work, even almost primitive. Maybe it explains the material and workmanship that has apparently gone into making this axe.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.
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.
I am glad you are here to share your experience and point out my misconceptions. Thank You.Speaking of the origins of personal knowledge - how you know what you know - and the use of these, so-called mortising axes I recall Eric Sloan's illustration depicting their use just the way you describe, wailing away on the poll with a wood striker. In and of themselves these axes make no sense to me. Only when they are qualified as used to make a mortise in posts for fencing does it begin to seem plausible. In other words for the crudest kind of work, even almost primitive. Maybe it explains the material and workmanship that has apparently gone into making this axe.
Is it possible that it was specialty tool designed for timber framing in mining industry? Those heavy poll mortise axes seem to be made and usually found in mine rich Pennsylvania.Ernest brings up a Very good question,what exactly justified the forging of a separate complex tool of such narrowly specialised purpose.
My own log building experience doesn't suggest much,but i've never done any historic restoration in any of areas inhabited during the Colonial period;any of those early techniques that were still a blend of the old European and the new evolving local methods.
Timberframing usually required a higher precision mortising,and was well served by augers and assorted chisels in that.
Thanks,that is So cool...Beautiful tool,dirtiest iron ever!...
Seller unsurprisingly is in Annville,PA...
commodification of the historical record
your job as a restoration carpenter in a significant historic structure is to repair in kind. That means that if the original work (in this case a mortise) was crudely made, your job is to make the replacement to match the original, not improve just because you can.
It only reminds me of my own complicity as a boy scout pillaging ancient fossil artifacts off the desert floor and keeping them in a desk drawer, and worse...It's true,but when it threatens to be too depressing i quickly recollect myself;it's scary how full the world's internet-based marketing platforms are of actual museum artefacts from USSR and satellite states...museum numbers still on 'em...And those have actually been kinda invested into,however feebly dysfunctionally...
(and if i Still feel whiny why then i think of what happened in the last couple decades to museums as well as all sorts of archaeological sites in Iraq,Syria,Afganistan....).
So in comparing i get all cheered up
No. Great accuracy and speed can be attained and the actual twybil known as kreuzaxt with even Roman origins, a true morticing axe, is a tool of high refinement.I hear you on the rest as well,a striking motion is not at all handy for any degree of control or accuracy in mortising...(those early German and other European twybill-ish tools were push-tools in spite of having a nominally striking surface/handle...).
phantom--the video and the sketch show the axe used to make the tenon not the mortise. The tenon is easy to make with the right axe, it is the way I made the majority of my tenons in timber framing. But what we are talking about is the mortise part of the joint. The video clearly shows the craftsmen using the chisel for the mortise. But, thank you for finding that video. It supports my work experience. I still hope to see a video that supports the "great accuracy and speed" statement. Can a mortise be made with some type of axe? Yes, I have done it many times with my period mortise axes I used in my job. Can it be done with the same "accuracy and speed"of the auger/mallet and chisels, No.