48" double bit

S

Square_peg

Gold Member
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
13,824
Found this photo in a book about old time logging. I think it's the longest real axe I've seen.

Long%20axes2.jpg
 
I think this single bit is a stage prop. If real that would be at least a 10 pound head.

Long%20handled%20axe.jpg
 
Square_peg said:
I think this single bit is a stage prop. If real that would be at least a 10 pound head.

Long%20handled%20axe.jpg
Click to expand...

With the head in the foreground, it might look bigger than it really is. Here's a 7-pounder that Lincoln used, a week before he was shot:

AR-302229871.jpg


From this article: http://www.rrstar.com/article/20080222/News/302229871

As mentioned in an earlier thread.
Steve Tall said:
This article says that of all the axes supposedly used by Lincoln, this one has the best documentation:
...

One week before his assassination, he picked up this 7-pound axe and did some demonstrations in front of a bunch of wounded soldiers. Some quotes from the linked article:

"Historians figure Abraham Lincoln was showing off on April 8, 1865, when, at the end of a long day, he spotted an ax at a Union Army field hospital in Virginia. He’d spent hours shaking hands with thousands of wounded soldiers. A doctor told him his arm was surely tired. Holding his arm straight out, Lincoln picked up the ax by the butt, with the handle parallel to the ground, and held the 7-pound tool motionless. He was 56 years old and one week away from assassination. “Strong men who looked on, men accustomed to manual labor, could not hold the same ax in that position for a moment,” wrote Francis Fisher Browne, a Union soldier who authored a biography called “The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln.” Lincoln also went to work chopping a log, historians say. Browne said someone saved the chips."
Click to expand...
 
Great old logging pictures SP. The guy on the springboard may just be short. People were shorter on average back then. You may be right however, that head looks small relative to the handle. I would love to find an old axe on a 40-48" handle.
 
Square_Peg; It might have been the axe that caught your eye in the initial picture but it was the crosscut saw that caught mine. That must have been a brute for two guys to tension-synchronize, and would have taken forever to re-sharpen. And do you roll it up to get it out of the bush at quitting time?
 
That saw caught my eye too. But I don't see a handle on the end near the top of the log. Am I missing something?
 
Squashfan said:
That saw caught my eye too. But I don't see a handle on the end near the top of the log. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

On a tree that size you would have to single buck it - i.e., one handle. To double buck you need a saw at least twice as long as the tree's diameter. Otherwise you won't clear the gullets and the saw will bind. These guys would have started by double bucking but then been forced to single buck as they got to the thick of the tree.
 
Square_peg said:
On a tree that size you would have to single buck it - i.e., one handle. To double buck you need a saw at least twice as long as the tree's diameter. Otherwise you won't clear the gullets and the saw will bind. These guys would have started by double bucking but then been forced to single buck as they got to the thick of the tree.
Click to expand...

Also, ven if they were using two handles all the way through, my understanding is that the "helper" would remove his handle as the tree fell and the Sawyer would pull the saw through the kerf as he went away from the tree. I can't remember where I saw this, so I may be imagining things :).
 
I have a 5 Lb. single nit Plumb. As far as I'm concerned, it for look'n at or a wall hanger only.

Here's a 5, 3.5 and a 2.5 Plumb.

[URL=http://s810.photobucket.com/user/doubleott/media/Plumb%20Five%20Lb%20Dayton/Plumb5LbDayton005.jpg.html][/URL]

[URL=http://s810.photobucket.com/user/doubleott/media/Plumb%20Five%20Lb%20Dayton/Plumb5LbDayton013.jpg.html][/URL]

A 3.5 and a 5 Lb Plumb ( the weight numbers are just above the boxed Plumb ).

[URL=http://s810.photobucket.com/user/doubleott/media/Plumb%20Five%20Lb%20Dayton/Plumb5LbDayton020.jpg.html][/URL]

Tom
 
Interesting photographs Square Peg, Them handles are pretty long. Have you noticed in Allen Klenmans book 'Axe Makers of North America" on page thirteen the guy on the spring board appears to have a curved handle on his Puget Sound double bit? I have seen other photos with curved handles on dbl bits before also but I can not remember where off the top of my head.

What I find even more interesting than the length of the axe handles in the photo you posted is that saw. Wow! What a saw. It seems to be a lance tooth but it has only two cutters per raker. I guess when you are pulling the saw that far you need to clear the kerf and them gullets would clog pretty quick.
 
garry3 said:
Interesting photographs Square Peg, Them handles are pretty long. Have you noticed in Allen Klenmans book 'Axe Makers of North America" on page thirteen the guy on the spring board appears to have a curved handle on his Puget Sound double bit? I have seen other photos with curved handles on dbl bits before also but I can not remember where off the top of my head.
Click to expand...

That's called an Adirondack pattern handle.

Adirondack%20handle.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top