W KELLY? Anyone recognize that?

Yankee Josh

Yankee Josh

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Mar 31, 2018
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Hello all. My neighbor dropped off an axe to me today. His way of saying thank you for helping him over the years i guess. Very nice of him! I believe it's a Maine pattern broad axe. It's stamped W.KELLY. I've never seen anything other than W.C KELLY unless it's a different maker. Hoping one of you can shed some light??
20190323_215931.jpg 20190323_220046.jpg 20190323_220318.jpg 20190323_220529.jpg 20190323_220405.jpg 20190323_220415.jpg It does have an inlaid bit. Appears to have been two halves welded together as these and mast axes appear to have been constructed. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Or thoughts and guesses for that matter!
Edit; i forgot to add a couple photos of how it looked when it arrived.
20190323_141444.jpg 20190323_141450.jpg
 
It's not long enough to be a mast axe. Here it is next to one. 15533969132641245217723751648816.jpg
It may not be a Maine pattern broad axe but i seem to remember seeing somewhere recently a photo that was a spitting image of it labeled that.
Yesteryear's tools at least doesn't reference the father producing axes prior to the W.C. Kelly name. I hope that's the case though! I would love to have a really early Kelly! That'd be awesome!
 
Yankee Josh said:
It's not long enough to be a mast axe. Here it is next to one. View attachment 1097220
It may not be a Maine pattern broad axe but i seem to remember seeing somewhere recently a photo that was a spitting image of it labeled that.
Yesteryear's tools at least doesn't reference the father producing axes prior to the W.C. Kelly name. I hope that's the case though! I would love to have a really early Kelly! That'd be awesome!
Click to expand...
I suspect not a masting axe. It would have had to have a really deep inserted bit or been re- steeled. What are the chances that has been re-steeled? A real clean job on a masting axe that had half the bit gone...
 
Judging by the bit steel It's hasn't been used much at all. Where the soft steel overlaps is about a 3/4" back from the sharp edge. So I've got 3/4" of pure bit steel before I reach softer steel on the outsides. It's much easier to see in person but here you can see where the soft steel is overlapping the bit steel. I filed back a little too far and obscured where it continued to the right. 15534548831554041770979434321568.jpg
Its much broader and thicker than my masting axe in every respect too. It weighs 8 ounces more than the masting axe as well. Here are some more photos comparing the two. 20190324_153512.jpg 20190324_153559.jpg 20190324_153546.jpg 20190324_153710.jpg
It does share some similarities but nuance matters quite a bit with axes. It doesn't appear to be a masting axe to me.
But more important to me is that stamp? Were there other Kellys making axes? I mean there must've been but I don't recall seeing any.
 
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