Ax head that has my brain racked

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PossumSausage

Joined
Jul 5, 2023
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Hello everyone, I've lurked here before but had to create an account to pick your brains... I have this ax head that I got out of an old hog barn I was cleaning and wanted to clean it up and hang it. I soaked in vinegar and uncovered 3½ stamped on the under side of the poll. I uncovered some letters on the top side too. I soaked it in ferric chloride to see if it would etch a pattern showing the bit heat treat or a welded bit, but nothing shows up. It does have a pretty soft bit, but the bit is still harder than the rest of the body. What I found interesting is the grain pattern that came through. Its like a highly refined wrought iron, but is harder than wrought iron. The entire body sparks like high carbon with a flap disk. The only thing I can think is blister or shear steel maybe? Another mystery is the 3½ stamp. That should be the weight in pounds and if we assume it had been resharpened enough to remove any forge welded bit, it should weigh in somewhere under 3½ pounds. But this sucker is 3 pounds 15.5 oz.... so any ideas on a possible brand and or age for this guy and why it weighs half a pound more than the stamp? There are no signs of drop forging marks that I could see. I was going to chuck it in the forge and see if I could reharden the bit and if not, re-steel it but I don't want to mess up something that may be something any more than I already have lol. I'm not sure how to post pics from my phone so I created an album on Google drive and pasted a link so you could check it out.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hooc8QXoLphGDEcX7
 
You mentioned the body is harder than wrought iron but looks like wrought iron. I’ve run into this with an axe before but mostly other tools (scrap metals, hammers, punches, etc.) that were covered in rust. They would look like they had a very fine wrought iron grainy pattern, but would spark like steel. What I figured that means is sometimes if a tool was ground with a very low grit at some point, then sat for how ever long rusting and pitting. The surface will rust deeper in the grooves of the low grit.

So the body likely isn’t wrought iron if you can tell it’s relatively hard. The grain pattern in your pictures looks pretty even to me also, the pattern in wrought iron won’t be nearly that uniform. If you really wanted to know you could clean up a section of the axe to 220 grit finish or so then etch it to find out… I don’t think that’s worth defacing the head too much over imo.
 
I guess I should have added that after cleaning with vinegar and not seeing any makers marks on the cheeks or bit I cleaned it us with a flap before etching in ferric chloride. So the etching pattern isn't from a rough grinding belt and the etching lines are perpendicular to the direction I hit it with the flap disk. I used a worn out 180 grit disk to remove as little material as possible and wouldn't have left anywhere near this size of grinding marks. It definitely has something to do with the steel that was used IMHO
 
garry3 said:
Someone cleaned the head with coarse grit. It's a modern head.
Click to expand...
But I etched it after a clean up with a fine grit flap wheel prior to the ferric etch. If these were grind marks, they would be from about a 36 grit belt. They etched through the smooth surface
 
The same as etching a polished piece of wrought or damascus. Started out smooth and the grain didn't show until after etching
 
Here you go Possum. This might help you and perhaps others in identifying older axes.

There are five heads here the second one down from the top is a more modern all steel one piece steel axe. The more modern axes haxe thicker eyes as a general rule. The axe at the bottom even has the wrought iron separating in the eye.



These older axes also have overlaid forge welded bits. There is clearly a seam on these three, some are harder to see though.

 
This is not a wrought iron axe head.
putting aside the assumptions you've made about the characteristics of the metal ( it's drop forged steel ) this is a more modern 50's era example of a Michigan pattern, it's a very symmetrical evenly ground head but not a very old one.

I'm not positive but I want to say this was made by Mann, it's not a True temper and I don't think it's a Plumb.
 
It's almost certainly a whole-steel head and what you've done with the ferric chloride etch is revealed the grain flow caused by the forging process. This is easiest to see in wrought iron heads due to the slag inclusions but is present in all forged axe heads.

cast-part-machined-part-forged-part-grain-flow.jpg


003-JE-Pistons-aligned-grain-flow-technology.jpg
 
MWHC I'm pretty sure is Marshall Wells Hardware Co. Iirc they were in Duluth, Minn. I have an old single bit axe head with the same stamp as yours. I also have a Duluth pack that was my Dad's from WW11 with the same logo. Dog
 
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