Flea Market Curiosity

[Ulrich.]

Hey all.

I recently acquired a couple neat little things from the local fleamarket and thought perhaps someone here could shed a little light on one of the items I brought back with me.

So I found just about the tiniest little hatchet bit I've ever seen. I have never seen anything like it before and I'm not sure what the intended use for the tool is. First thing that came to mind would be to help gather kindling from larger branches but I'm just not sure. It's a bit rusty and beat to hell but I feel that there is life left in it. Its sharp as heck. I also acquired an old pipe, included in the pictures mostly for size reference. In any case, has anyone seen anything like this before or have any information about what it could possibly be? It's really left me scratching my head.

Oh, no visible markings on it.

 

[John Frankl]

Looks like a smaller hot cutter--a blacksmith's tool to cut hot steel.

 

[daizee]

Smurf axe!

 

[Square_peg]

Looks like a smaller hot cutter--a blacksmith's tool to cut hot steel.

That's a good possibility. But you'd think a hot cut would have a straighter bit. Then again the bevel angle is about right for a hot cut. One tip off might be the shape of the eye. If it's an oval or adze eye then it's most likely a hot cut. That's what a blacksmith would use. If it's a single-bit axe eye then you've got an axe. I can't tell exactly from the photograph but it looks like a rectangular eye - an adze eye. I'm betting that John has correctly ID'd it as a hot cut.

 

[Operator1975]

From trying to look at the pics on my phone it looks about the size of a salemans sample mini hatchet without the handle. Just a guess though. Ill have to get to a pc and look closer. Nice find!

Edit - looking again closer I would probably lean towards the other fellas on here - salemans samples usually had the name on the head - not always but usually - and that one looks too beefy for that anyway. Ill just stop now while I am rambling.

 

[VaughnT]

It could be a smith's hot-cut. A lot of them were off-center like a timberman's side axe used for squaring logs. This allowed the smith to make a sharp shoulder or get into a tight spot on a project.

The beefy walls around the eye seem to support the idea that it was used in a smithy, but the lack of any mushrooming around the poll would seem to indicate otherwise. If this was used in a smithy, they would know about proper heat-treatment and would have left the poll softer than the rest so that it didn't spall when struck with a hammer. The lack of any mushrooming, and the curvature of the cutting edge leads me to believe that this was intended as a wood-cutting tool, not an iron cutting one.

It's definitely tiny, but I don't think it was a salesman's sample. The proportions around the eye just don't match the full-size models the salesman was peddling, and those makers of old were fully capable of making a 1/5 or 1/10 scale replica. Heck, if they can put a hardy and pritchell hole in an anvil sample that's only two inches long, and everything's to scale, they could surely make a better axe replica than that!

 

[garry3]

I with Frank on this, hot cut. That thing could have been redressed countless times. Poll and bit.