On the Origin of Phantom Bevels

[Square_peg]

I just find the narrative of a half-cocked repair........

Not a half-cocked repair at all on an inlaid bit. You're editorializing.

If during manufacture you inlay a 1" bit of steel and then draw out your bit to shape you''ll end up with 2" of high carbon hardenable steel in the center of your axe. Through wear and sharpening you lose an inch of your toe. By this the axe will be inefficient to use. But it still has an inch of good steel wasting away in its core. And if it has a fat cheek to donate material its an easy natural thing to draw a new bit.

Either of those 2 fat cheeked old axes I posted could easily be re-drawn twice before they looked like the thin bitted axe.

I can only make it so clear. If you're unable to see the obvious then I can't help you.

 

[Square_peg]

The bit of an axe or the point of a pick (even moreso) doesn't require or hold a lot of mass. Look at this pick I repointed. I've hardly changed the cross section while adding nearly 2 inches to the overall length. That's because I'm elongating the thinnest part - as in drawing out an axe. Axe or pick, there's plenty of steel there. It just needs to be pushed around a little. Much more sensible than forge welding when it isn't the least bit required. Any weld risks a failure.

 

[jake pogg]

For some notes on competition between the Swedish and Russian iron trades, check out this document.

Thank you very much,it seems like s great read(for us metal-heads at least!),i'll study it carefully.

(From all my reading from the Russian side there's a great solid body of loud Whining......Ever the sore-loosers they moan about the "unfair" competition from the Swedish(as fellow-producers)and the English(as capitalists and the main market).But yes,they did produce a bunch of Fe products over the years...(notorious for the less-than-reliable quality of most of it

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Not a half-cocked repair at all on an inlaid bit. You're editorializing.

If during manufacture you inlay a 1" bit of steel and then draw out your bit to shape you''ll end up with 2" of high carbon hardenable steel in the center of your axe. Through wear and sharpening you lose an inch of your toe. By this the axe will be inefficient to use. But it still has an inch of good steel wasting away in its core. And if it has a fat cheek to donate material its an easy natural thing to draw a new bit.

Either of those 2 fat cheeked old axes I posted could easily be re-drawn twice before they looked like the thin bitted axe.

I can only make it so clear. If you're unable to see the obvious then I can't help you.

I get what you're saying. I really do. I'm saying we need to establish things like the actual cost of steel, the earliest examples of convex cheeks on American axes, and the earliest examples of phantom bevels. These have not been established, and there are other sensible explanations both for how repairs could be made to a badly worn axe, and for how phantom bevels could have developed as a feature. Your attitude is unnecessary. I'm out.

 

[jake pogg]

we need to establish things like the actual cost of steel, the earliest examples of convex cheeks on American axes, and the earliest examples of phantom bevels.

It would indeed be fantastic to establish these three important way-points...But WHAT an undertaking it would be...

Not too long ago in another thread the "Blacksmith and Wheelwright" publication was mentioned.That's a tremendous resource,that i personally only know through Richardson's selection/compilation of excerpts from it(for those not familiar with the book here's a link to part 1:https://archive.org/details/practicalblacksm01richuoft)

Reading Richardson is Exactly like reading this forum!....Everyone has an opinion,and they all differ significantly...But one does get the inkling of what it was like....And my overriding impression from reading and re-reading Richardson over the years is how Complex things were,in the late 19th c. America.....

 

[Square_peg]

I'm saying we need to establish things like the actual cost of steel, the earliest examples of convex cheeks on American axes, and the earliest examples of phantom bevels.

I fully agree that all of those things need to be established before we could know definitively how bevels evolved. Lacking that I'm looking at the problem theoretically. What sort of things might have lead to their evolution. I value your thoughts and opinions (and the rest of the forums') on the matter. For example, this was helpful.

I think it much more likely that it was arrived at through deductive reasoning since a high centerline is the natural consequence of trying to balance penetration and preventing sticking with a bit of a given depth, width, and head weight.

It provides an alternate path that could have lead to the developement of bevels. All your comments cause me to re-evaluate my theory and see if it still makes sense. Weighing all that I still feel like my theory is the more likely scenario. But I hope you'll stay with the thread and continue to question me.

And if I came off as copping an attitude I apologize. I kind of felt the same from you. Sometimes it's just the internet format that causes us to interpret something other than how is was meant to be interpreted.

 

[Steve Tall]

Does anyone have any documents on actual steel costs in colonial America? I haven't been able to turn up anything. S Steve Tall ?

Some clues from an 1836 encyclopedia:

...

"Steel of cementation, however carefully made, is never quite equable its texture but it is rendered quite so by fusing it in a crucible and then casting into bars. Thus treated it is called cast steel and sells at a much higher price common steel. The process was contrived at Sheffield in England in 1750 and for long time kept secret."
"To fuse one ton of steel about twenty tons of coals are expended which accounts for the high price of cast steel when compared with that of iron or even of common steel."
from
Encyclopædia Americana, Volume 11, Francis Lieber, Desilver, Thomas, 1836, p. 580-581


From another reference:
"Probably very little Sheffield crucible steel was exported to America before 1800, since at that time the American industries that were to become the town's biggest customers were either in their infancy or non-existant... The expense of cast steel (about a third again as much as shear steel) precluded its widespread use, and the needs of the colonial craftsmen could be met, to a certain extent, by imports of Sheffield shear steel or domestic blister steel... [However], crucible carbon steel gradually replaced iron and low-grade steel in the first half of the nineteenth century. Sheffield crucible steel... improved the American economy's cutting edge in the drive to exploit the country's huge resources of wood.... Sheffield steel likewise became indispensable for American axemakers... Cast steel came into general use for axes sometime after 1830..."

from
Sheffield Steel and America: A Century of Commercial and Technological Interdependence 1830-1930
by Geoffrey Tweedale
Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 5-6


By 1901, "Prices for unfinished material in the form of castings or merchant bar may be said annually to range per pound from 1-1/2 to 3 cents for cast iron, according to size and character of castings 4 to 7 cents for cast steel, 20 to 30 cents for bronze, 1-1/2 to 3 cents for wrought iron."
from The Age of Steel, Volume 90, 1901

 

[jake pogg]

Well,gents...I had a few moments in the forge just now,and happened to see an axe-head in the scrap pile(something that is stamped "roughneck"/"wear safety goggles"/"2 1/2"(lbs i presume),and that had been cruelly experimented upon in the past...

So i outlined it in soapstone,and took a photo,and then ditto,after giving it a few whacks.https://imgur.com/a/dPqt1

I whacked it for a dozen heats or so,more on the side(toe,i thinks)that has that chip out of it.

Now,again:I'm all alone,my PH is down,and i've not troubled to come up with any tooling that would streamline the project.
What would be helpful is a mushroom-stake that corresponds to the hammer-face shape,and,of course more power(especially as this is NOT any WI,or even mild,probably 1060-ish something).
Iffen some hillbilly came to me asking for somesuch i'd definitely had him at least hold the tongs,it'd help a lot.
But,in any case:

It Does move.The material moves out towards the edge,and can even be made to do so differentially,heal-toe wise.
So in Theory,it Would have been Possible,and i'd say,under certain circumstances,Practicable.

 

[junkenstien]

From a list in an ebook on project Gutenberg called woodworking tools 1600-1900.Man named Thompson in MA..in 1827 lists the value of all the tools in his shop.Broad axe $3.00,Adze$ 2.25,hatchet and hammer both .50 cents,300lb grindstone $6.25.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27238/27238-h/27238-h.htm

 

[Square_peg]

There's one misconception lingering in this thread that needs some light shed on it. I think there are some here who feel that repairing an axe in this manner would have been a shoddy or hap-hazard way of making a repair. This is completely wrong thinking. Old tools were routinely repaired this way and some still are. Makers planned for this in the design of their tools. The drawing out and re-pointing of striking tools was and is standard operating procedure.

Read this from Hubbard, a renowned maker of railroad tools including track chisels. Begin below the images of the Hubbard Chisels at "All Hubbard Chisels..." The maker is explicitly acknowledging that their tools are going to be redressed by local and company blacksmiths to extend their working life.

To this day jack hammer points are redressed in this manner. My friend and fellow blacksmith Larry Langdon had a business doing this for some time (which he has since ceased - paid the bills but boring). He heats the bit in an induction forge, nips a bit off the tip (fatigued metal) and then re-points them at the hammer. He did 1000's of points this way.

 

[Square_peg]

What would be helpful is a mushroom-stake that corresponds to the hammer-face shape,and,of course more power(especially as this is NOT any WI,or even mild,probably 1060-ish something).
Iffen some hillbilly came to me asking for somesuch i'd definitely had him at least hold the tongs,it'd help a lot.
But,in any case:

It Does move.The material moves out towards the edge,and can even be made to do so differentially,heal-toe wise.
So in Theory,it Would have been Possible,and i'd say,under certain circumstances,Practicable.

Thanks for expending the effort to do that, Jake. I owe you one. I only wish you'd had an old wrought iron axe to work with. I've thought of trying this with a modern axe, a spring fuller and a striker. I hadn't thought of a mushroom stake but I like the concept. I have a hardy tool blank that I could form into such a tool. My buddy Larry made it from a jack hammer point, fit it to my hardy hole and just left the top of the tool big, fat and round until I decided what to do with it.

Were you working without a drift in the eye? One of my concerns was the effort I would spend creating a drift before I could even attempt this. But if I controlled the heat near the eye perhaps the drift would be unnecessary.

One other thing, did moving metal toward the toe in this way create a bevel like we might see on an axe?

 

[Square_peg]

For those unclear about what a mushroom stake is....

http://www.imountainforge.com/shop/mushroom-4

Placed in a hardy hole it acts as a counterpoint to your hammer, creating the same indentation on both sides of the work.

 

[300Six]

From a list in an ebook on project Gutenberg called woodworking tools 1600-1900.Man named Thompson in MA..in 1827 lists the value of all the tools in his shop.Broad axe $3.00,Adze$ 2.25,hatchet and hammer both .50 cents,300lb grindstone $6.25.https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27238/27238-h/27238-h.htm

Thank you for this! When one broad axe is valued same as 6 sets of hatchets/hammers and value of two broad axes is roughly the same as a 300 lb grindstone you know these weren't 'chump change'. Much more blade steel went into a broad axe than a hatchet. Today steel is such an inexpensive material that a 1 lb hatchet costs almost the same as a 3 1/2 lb axe solely because labour expense is almost identical. I wonder what a good draught horse was worth back then?

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Let it be known that I'm aware of the convention of re-pointing tools used in cutting steel, stone, and masonry. I'm still bowing out of this conversation, and would simply caution not to become married to an idea unless there exist no clear alternative explanations. In the face of multiple possible reasons, conclusions should be taken as tentative only. This is an interesting hypothesis, but only one of several plausible lineages of the feature.

 

[jake pogg]

Aw,boss,it's nuffink,wish that i could dedicate some time to this,as it's an interesting inquary,but the spring will now rush my ass out of the forge till probably fall-time...

Yes,the tooling is always a huge issue.It'll be a difference between night and day,to be properly tooled-up,vs dinking around with insufficiency of power And of tooling.

The way i tried it this brief time it was obvious that the metal will try to go out the sides(the path of least resistance).So before trying to indent the blade i first forged in a semi-circular indent in the edge of the blade.
Indenting the flat pushed it back out,as expected,and so i had to go back and forth like that,every other heat,edge/flat.

And yes,moving steel by hand is tough.I do come across a WI-body axe once in a blue moon,but you know how hard it is to molest a nice old tool,even it be shot for working with...I am rather rich in WI,and could,concievably,make a simple axe to experiment with...

Were you working without a drift in the eye? One of my concerns was the effort I would spend creating a drift before I could even attempt this. But if I controlled the heat near the eye perhaps the drift would be unnecessary.

It is a valid concern,as even in the best of circumstances the eye will probably have to be trued-up after everything's said and done.
I have not had a drift in(though i do have one for that size US axe),and Did have a stray blow or two fall close,so yes,it's a concern.
Drifts are damnable hard to make,they've some volume to them,and are quite irregular.Also it's of course next to impossible to have a "universal" one in any sense,so....
If you'll be making one,i'd try to make it as long as possible,both for the gentler taper,and in the handle.
A longish drift Really helps take that inevitable twist out in the end,an axe with no drift through it is Extremely hard to sight for twist...

And this brings us to tongs:Axes are notoriously hard to hold onto.And when holding onto the poll,it's rather easy to distort the eye.One would be better off forging a set to this purpose,i see people have success with a short/flat/stout-jawed kind.

And yes,seemed like all my efforts were beginning to add up to that very typical phantom bevel look/shape,(except that most of these you see are made in a closed die,and so don't have to conform to these laws that controlled hand-forging is ruled by).

Another necessary tool for this would be a Bolster block of N-th convexity,to forge the axe on edge.All i have for that is the base of the horn,and it's of course bad and wrong,horn being a dead-blow entity to begin with,And a degree of taper corkscrewing things on ya...

So,in an ideal world,had you some time at Larry's ,you could even make a combination tool-half bolster for edge/half mushroom for the indenting(to match some old 3-4 lbs sledge)...

It's not out of the question that in a moderately tooled-up rural forge they used to have something that could also have worked for this,some plow-share work for example also required convex bottom tools...

 

[Square_peg]

but you know how hard it is to molest a nice old tool,even it be shot for working with...

Yes, it's a major concern of mine. Yet one of these old axes may need to become a sacrificial lamb.

The way i tried it this brief time it was obvious that the metal will try to go out the sides(the path of least resistance). So before trying to indent the blade i first forged in a semi-circular indent in the edge of the blade.
Indenting the flat pushed it back out,as expected,and so i had to go back and forth like that,every other heat,edge/flat.

I like your thinking in this method. The indent was a great idea. Perhaps combining the indent with my spring fuller might keep things moving mostly in the right direction and result in less grinding of material off an antique axe and onto my shop floor. The spring fuller will move material primarily in two opposite directions (toward eye, toward bit) and slightly less out perpendicular to the major axis of the axe. Alternately, a straight or cross peen hammer could be used against a hardy fuller to focus movement in 2 directions. Having a drift in the eye would allow me to hammer closer to the eye and focus the movement toward the bit. I was thinking of making several indents arranged radially from a point at the top of the phantom bevel I would create. Then hammering the high spots between the indents either between the horn and the hammer or between the hammer and a new mushroom stake.

 

[jake pogg]

I believe all of the above is sound thinking,in principle.
Spring-swage is a good idea...If one could make one with two balls,blobs of a sort,on the ends...

That last photo is pretty much exactly how i did everything today.And it was rough going...Horn has no rebound(not supposed to),and of course corresponded poorly to the size/shape/radius of a 3-lbs sledge that i was using.

But yes,i'm with you.And it'd Definitely be a game-changer to work in wrought.Sometimes i switch to WI abruptly after working modern med-C steel,and the change is staggering...The hammer just sinks in...
It would have it's own limiting factors,of course.It'd be very important to work in only the higher T range,and it gets finicky in some other ways...

 

[Square_peg]

I like your idea about a special spring fuller. Are you thinking of back-to-back mushroom heads or similar? Many varieties have been made over the centuries.

I'm also thinking about controlling the outward spread. Besides indenting, what if we started by making the edge thin (to remove stock that would move outward) and then very briefly hit the edge with a damp rag between the forge and the anvil. Steel moves easiest where it's hottest. If the edge were slightly less hot that might encourage movement in other directions. Or would this just lose heat and waste fuel?

 

[junkenstien]

In that link I posted earlier he says the highest praise for hand tools at the centennial exposition in 1876 was for the American felling axe,easy to rework and ease of removal after striking are what it says.Would think high center line.

 

[jake pogg]

Oh yes,that second one may well be about right...(with the outer corners rounded,so yes,like a mushroom on each end).

And yes,id guess that preventing material from coming out the side will not work very well by cooling(especially the WI would resent that...it may well rip apart rather than contain the rest of mass).
The resistance in all other directions is just too great.
However,indenting it beforehand seemed to work just fine.One would just have to be patient,and try to not gain too much at one heat.
I think that if indented slightly concave,and maybe chamfered a bit,it'd stay healthy on the next heat when the indent in the flat of blade will be deepened.
Remember that the classy technique when fullering is to stay towards the center of main mass,at first,because the edges have a place to go and will move easier.
So just like that,start indenting towards the centerline of blade first,and hopefully,combined with judicious edge-indent,there'll be No grinding necessary afterwards....(Wouldn't that be sweet...Hope springs eternal!