My first axe restoration!

T

Thundermtn

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Feb 6, 2012
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I was cleaning up the office the other day and I found this.



My Dad used this particular axe for several years before switching to a machete for daily use on a survey crew. He still used it for notching trees into the 90's. No clue how old it really is. Stamping says it's a USA head so I'm going to clean it up and re-haft it. I'll be taking plenty of pics along the way. It will be cool to have it back to a usable condition considering it has some family history and it helped put food on the table and a roof over my head.
 
The office you say .... not the usual place to look for axes but wherever you can find them!! Looks to be in good shape - should be a fun project.
 
Land surveyors office. There are machetes, hatchets, and axes, and metal detector finds stashed away in back rooms and corners that go unnoticed for years. As technology has improved we need to use this stuff a lot less than we used to but nothing useful get tossed. It's stamped 'Sentry' but from looking around on ebay I think it may be a hardware store re-brand of a Collins. Makes sense b/c Dad used Collins machetes for as long as we could find them.
 
Thundermtn said:
Land surveyors office. There are machetes, hatchets, and axes, and metal detector finds stashed away in back rooms and corners that go unnoticed for years. As technology has improved we need to use this stuff a lot less than we used to but nothing useful get tossed. It's stamped 'Sentry' but from looking around on ebay I think it may be a hardware store re-brand of a Collins. Makes sense b/c Dad used Collins machetes for as long as we could find them.
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Makes sense. Sounds like it could be time for more digging.
 
If I was you .... Just do the sharpening and replacment of handle. Sanding often destroy the most part that the oxy...
 
I'm probably going to go with vinegar b/c it looks to be a slower, safer way to de-crud the head and I already have a gallon at the house. Never tried it before so hopefully it goes well. I may hit it with a brass brush by hand as long as it doesn't start to mar the head. As long as I get the dried black paint/sap/ox and rust off that's probably as far as I'll go b/c the rest of the nicks and dings are what makes it a surveyors axe. If I like this one when I'm done I might spring for a council tool axe and have a shiny new chip thrower. I don't want to damage it once I refinish it, but I do want to chop down a 8" dead dogwood in the backyard, probably will just be for display after I've felled with it.
 
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cityofthesouth said:
Makes sense. Sounds like it could be time for more digging.
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Oh there's more! Not worth anything, nothing more than 50-60 years old but there's a lot of working tools and that's what cool about them. They're used by someone to make a living.

If this axe project is fun then here's my next candidate. Not very old, handle looks like maybe it was a case or estwing, it's a metal detector find from a road/power line right-of-way.
 
Don't use vinegar !!! Use a wire cup on a drill or angle grinder ( vinegar will leave a dull gray finish and remove the natural patina:barf::barf: ). Just wire all of the rust off to reveal the natural patina hiding under the rust:thumbup:
 
Won't the wire leave it looking like a mis-matched engine turn finish? The steel around the eye looks to be pretty soft as there are very clear marks from a waffled faced hammer on top. Looks like there was at some point an attempt to shore up the head in the field during a job.
 
No, it wont as long as you are using the cup brush and not a flap disc (which will leave a turned/swirl finish). It's up to you how you want it to be, but the wire cup brush on an angle grinder essentially removes the rust and polishes the head without removing the dark patina. The vinegar will essentially etch it to bare steel. I've done both, and it all depends on what you want it to look like. The existing patina will also inhibit rust much more than a vinegar bath head. I've even thrown head in vinegar, and then done the wire cup brush treatment and it creates a very nice satin finish.
 
I'll just have to see what the inside of the eye looks like. I don't think I have a tool that will fit down inside there and be able to get the rust out. More than likely it rode in the back of a work truck for a long time and if it's like a pick axe the eye will be pretty crudy and a pick axe has the benefit of polishing itself with every mount and remove of the handle. I could hand file but the small radius's on the inside ends but it will a pain in the you know what. I kind of like the look of the battleship grey finish of the vinegar head pics I've saw. Probably be a game time decision.
 
when I use a wire wheel it doesn't leave any marks behind ( and if it does you can't see them ) and as far as inside the eye, you can just tape the bottom off and fill the eye with vinegar ( it won't matter if the patina is gone because you'll never see it again if you get a good hang on the first try) let me post some pics of a couple old rusty hammers that I restored and used a somewhat soft wire wheel on ( if the wheel is softer or even brass and you don't use too much force you'll be fine ) with the amount of rust on that axe ( about the same as my hammers had ) a wire wheel should be fine ,
 
Rust in the eye can be removed with a round wire brush, sandpaper, or even just a rough rag. As long as it's only surface rust, it will be fine. Once the handle is fitted well, and the handle has been oiled, there wont be much of a way for moisture to get in and make it worse. Surface rust is no biggie and can be wiped off...flakes should be removed.
 


You can see there's no rust and no wire wheel marks, just a nice patina . And this is the kind of result you should get with your axe.
 
I drilled and hammered out the busted haft. Piece of cake, but the inside of the eye is crusty with flaking rust, especially and mostly in the corners. Turns out some of the crud on the outside was dried sap on top of black paint. Started to wire and it was slowly taking paint off exposing the metal under the paint, but it is different looking than the places where the paint had been knocked off in a splotchy pattern years ago.

So to keep it from looking like a piebald I decided to just dip the head. You can see where the steel is brighter just under the stamp from the wire taking some paint off. This is about 2.5 hours into the vinegar soak then some hand brushing to loosen some more paint and crud. If I do this with another head that's not painted I would skip the vinegar.


 
SENTRY USA is a new one on me. Hopefully someone will chime in with who the actual maker was.
 
From the vinegar bath it's looking like it's been tempered twice and there is a slightly concave top profile with the deepest part about 1" towards the eye from the darker temper line. No clue if that helps id. It or not. This is about 6 hours in.

 
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