Puzzle of the day axe head ID

Peterborough Museum and Archives will be receiving the G. Story axe head on Dec 23 when I deliver it in person. Thank you very much Steve Tall for your invaluable sleuthing about the origin of this unique piece. The museum could not offer cash for purchase (which is typical in Canada) but did offer to issue a tax receipt. Tax receipt only serves to reduce year end income taxes and I'm semi-retired and not able to benefit from such an offer but a well-heeled tool collector colleague in Vancouver generously offered to purchase it from me for $250 and 'we' garnered an antique appraiser's valuation of $325. On that basis he has "donated" to the museum. Presumably everybody wins and the axe returns to within a city block of it's 150 years ago origin.

It was suggested that the 5 1/4 lb head is all steel construction (based on uniform oxidation of the surfaces) which would make it atypical manufacture during an era (1860s) when wrought iron was readily available/affordable and steel was in short supply and expensive. I have also noticed that the cheek profile looks suspiciously much like the forerunner of later technology (hot stamping in forming dies) that features 'phantom bevels'. Evolution of tools has always had quiet precedents and I wonder if small town foundry owner George Story might have been an unsung initiator/inventor of this profile. When you view current footage of Swede boutique 'flat-cheeked' axes being 'old-fashioned' hammer forged you can appreciate that scalloped blades and raised centrelines are not at all simple, nor perhaps even economically feasible, to make.

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Well this was an interesting thread. I'm sorry I had missed it up until this point. I recently picked up a hatchet from the same time period. Though I'm not as kind or patient as you, I've already put and edge back on it and fully intend to put it to use. Interestingly enough it also has a very pronounced high centerline. And the thinnest eye walls I've ever seen. Having taken a file to the bit I have to say the steel feels soft which makes me a little nervous about how good of a user it will make. Though as you said it will be interesting to see how it compares to a modern or more modern axe.

My head has two stamps that helped narrow the production timeframe. Lippincott Co Pittsburgh PA and William Mann Lewistown PA. From what I can tell that places the date of production in the mid 1800s, but please someone correct me if I'm wrong.
 
300Six said:
Peterborough Museum and Archives will be receiving the G. Story axe head on Dec 23 when I deliver it in person. Thank you very much Steve Tall for your invaluable sleuthing about the origin of this unique piece. The museum could not offer cash for purchase (which is typical in Canada) but did offer to issue a tax receipt. Tax receipt only serves to reduce year end income taxes and I'm semi-retired and not able to benefit from such an offer but a well-heeled tool collector colleague in Vancouver generously offered to purchase it from me for $250 and 'we' garnered an antique appraiser's valuation of $325. On that basis he has "donated" to the museum. Presumably everybody wins and the axe returns to within a city block of it's 150 years ago origin.

It was suggested that the 5 1/4 lb head is all steel construction (based on uniform oxidation of the surfaces) which would make it atypical manufacture during an era (1860s) when wrought iron was readily available/affordable and steel was in short supply and expensive. I have also noticed that the cheek profile looks suspiciously much like the forerunner of later technology (hot stamping in forming dies) that features 'phantom bevels'. Evolution of tools has always had quiet precedents and I wonder if small town foundry owner George Story might have been an unsung initiator/inventor of this profile. When you view current footage of Swede boutique 'flat-cheeked' axes being 'old-fashioned' hammer forged you can appreciate that scalloped blades and raised centrelines are not at all simple, nor perhaps even economically feasible, to make.
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Thanks for the update. Sounds like it's a historically significant axe head. Amazing that it will be returning so close to it's birthplace, after all these years.
 
Great to hear that things worked out so nicely!

Regarding the whole-steel vs. iron body/welded steel bit I'd hasten to state that it's something of a myth that iron won't pit given the right conditions. Likewise it's possible for steel to rust in a fine and uniform manner without significant pitting. It all depends on the specific conditions that the tool was subjected to. I find scythe blades in all manner of degrees of corrosion, including many that are revealed to be laminated in grinding (where the differing wear rate creates a visible delineation of the weld lines, as well as the difference in spark pattern during dry grinding) that have very pitted surfaces despite their iron cladding. My wedding band was actually forged from an iron 1800's "tire" from old farming equipment, and the exterior of the tire was pitted in varying degrees, yet when cut it revealed a grain pattern in its cross section consistent with wrought iron. It's true that it's less susceptible to initial rusting than steel is, but it's not as impervious to age and weathering as many think it is. Rust is a strange beast that creates different effects under different circumstances. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of non-destructive methods for testing composition of ferrous metals. Unless someone were to grind on it, discover documents describing the manufacturing process, or cut samples from different parts of the head it's not easy to make the call one way or the other, other than to guess that it's most likely for it to have followed the manufacturing conventions of the period and region.
 
I am hoping that the museum (namely one of the curators) takes more than a passing interest in this. I didn't dare touch the head with any files or grinder nor soak it in vinegar. Museum instructions right from the beginning were "don't touch it" (ie clean it up or try to restore it).

The other curious thing is that the head does not look to have been made by folding over a mandrel but rather is a 'sandwich' of two pieces of metal.

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Yeah--it's definitely good that you didn't do anything to alter it! It is definitely an interesting construction. Makes me wonder if the "seam" at either end is a result of slitting and drifting it.
 
Looks like two straps welded together. Likely an inserted forge welded bit. Poll might be forge welded on as well.
 
I'd second that.The weld-line going toward the bit,the way it steers off center,makes it likely to be an assymetric weld,very common in the past.

Toward the poll I can make out only that one central seam,but yea,the poll can be welded on,or welded In(a little more common).

Many large-ish axes,especially broadaxes,were a composit,often simply boxing the bit and the poll with a couple of chunks of strap...


FortyTwoAxes,yep,you've essencially got it right about the corrosivity.If i may add a bit:The C content lowers the resistance to oxidation(in an accelerated "artificial" corroding with an etchant the higher the C content-the darker the color;with the WI commonly etching almost white(alloying elements affect this also but to a smaller degree).
But another way that the WI(so-called in the trade,in reality never being any particular alloy by composition,which commonly causes confusion)resisted corrosion was mechanical:WI being refined by folding,welding, and forging back out again,folded a lot of slag into the material(as it was refined further the slag inclusions got thinner and thinner,but of course never really went away).So that the object made of WI corrodes to the nearest slag layer,where,slag being Si and other non-metallic junk,the corrosion slows,or even stops.
That is the why for WI being spec'ed for the Navy anchor chain,the very low C plus those mineral layers offering a little more protection.That.of course,is also the reason that much corroded WI gets this "wood-grain" pattern of texture.
 
Square_peg said:
Looks like two straps welded together. Likely an inserted forge welded bit. Poll might be forge welded on as well.
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It would be really nice if someone with museum conservator experience (and endowed with unbridled enthusiasm) were to take a shine to trying to reverse-engineer this piece. Many of today's college graduates, unfortunately, abide by sterile textbook learning and are unimaginative about piecing together out-of-the-ordinary historical manufacture.
 
Reverse-engineering an axe is an (unimaginably)serious undertaking...The best hand at that that i'm aware of is Jim Austin,and he forges DOZENS of trial forgings before even beginning on a first version...
The man's been forging tools since '85,when he graduated from some professional school in Germany,and nothing in what he has to say on the subject would make one believe that it ever gets easier...Axes are like that.

But,yeah,it would be great to have each and every one of the classy old axes studied,re-created,recorded,et c.Tremendous amount of forging knowledge vanishes with neglected artefacts...
 
jake pogg said:
Reverse-engineering an axe is an (unimaginably)serious undertaking...The best hand at that that i'm aware of is Jim Austin,and he forges DOZENS of trial forgings before even beginning on a first version...
The man's been forging tools since '85,when he graduated from some professional school in Germany,and nothing in what he has to say on the subject would make one believe that it ever gets easier...Axes are like that.

But,yeah,it would be great to have each and every one of the classy old axes studied,re-created,recorded,et c.Tremendous amount of forging knowledge vanishes with neglected artefacts...
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Reverse engineering of something simple made 150 years ago with common materials, using simple tools, typical heat source and a conventional forge using any one of maybe a dozen known and not yet lost to the ages techniques cannot be remotely as difficult as it is/was anticipating (during the 1980s) how the clever, motivated and persistent Soviets might reverse-engineer the manufacture of micro circuitry despite it having been some 30 years after they failed to figure out how to recreate the 1950's transistor technology that started it all. Victor Belenko's 1976 defection over to the West with a state of the art MIG 25 turned out to be an expose of an exotic flying machine laden with sophisticated radio-vacuum tube electronics. I don't know who cried or laughed the most (Soviets VS Americans) during that discovery.
 
Kind Sir,i have never,in all honesty,forged a MiG...:)

I have forged a number of axes,though,most way under 3 lbs....5+lbs of steel under the hammer is not a small chore,the mass poses some unexpected pitfalls.

But it's not just the workout,or the technicalities.

The most difficult part is to hit that exact "note",you could almost say,the balance of the original tool,the "feel" of it.Even just visually.

As a practicing smith,i see the project as challenging,maybe very-,and requiring somewhat more than "enthusiasm".But,hey,if someone was to undertake this i'd be the first to cheer them on!:)
 
jake pogg said:
Tremendous amount of forging knowledge vanishes with neglected artefacts...
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There's an old saying that whenever a blacksmith dies a library is lost. Locally we lost the Library of Congress a few years back when Grant Sarver passed on. He was a veritable encyclopedia of blacksmithing knowledge along with being an unsurpassed millwright.
 
Grant's passing was a catastrophe,i still remember how wrong it felt.
Thanks,Square Peg,that's exactly right.
 
Square_peg said:
That was universal in the community.
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Argh,Grant...That was like the Alexandria Library burning down...

Now Grant wouldn't be intimidated by a 5 lb forging!:)

Lieblad,now that you've said that i can see that it's indeed possible,a nasty drifting ordeal gone wrong(maybe the forge forming a nasty big clinker,the heat becoming lousier and lousier...:)...then trying against all reason to forge the mess back into the semblance of decency...
But i don't know,even in the photo you can see the crack towards the poll going almost all the way...Doubtful that someone let a screw-up like this out of their shop...Hope that it's a weld:)

CAT scan works very well,too,you can see lots,inclusions,voids,all the stuff we normally not wanting to see in our axe-heads...
 
The museum now has the axe. Interestingly while touring their exhibits I found an identical shaped (but without (or illegible) stamp by virtue of being considerably more rusted) head in the display of Empire Loyalist provisions. British Colonial citizens fleeing from the newly formed Republic of U S of A in the early 1800s were granted 100-200 acre land parcels in southern Ontario (then called Upper Canada) and rudimentary provisions (bag of nails, crop seeds, window glass, clothing fabric, tools, bags of flour etc) in order for them to build shelter, prepare for winter and start land clearing for farm operations. It said on the display that the axe head was British issue.

The profile of the Story head is entirely unknown to me and not one common to n. American manufacture so it may be that George Story copied the design (and added the cheek scallops) or maybe the museum curators mis-identified an artifact that was donated by a local citizen who believed it to be of earlier manufacture and authentic British issue. It'll be interesting to see what comes of this.
 
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