What have I got? 600 grams of treasure or trash??

the-accumulator

the-accumulator

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What do I know? It weighs 600g, it measures 14 1/2 inches long with a 4 1/2 inch bit, and the haft is very two-dimensional, as in cheap. It has had the red paint worn off of one side but not the other, and it has a coating of varnish over the entire hatchet, as in over the handle and the the head. The varnish was applied after the paint was worn off. It is not at all sharp, but the grind is nice and thin and symmetrical. The haft is a bit crooked in the eye, and it has a Perma-bond type of seal hiding the head end of the haft. My guess is that it is European, but I can't make out what I think is a maker's mark (see the photos). Any ideas as to its origins? Thanks, T-A. (Sorry the pictures are not all rigt-side up.)

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Very common Rhine pattern hatchet,made in Germany or in any of the myriad places around about that it was out-sourced...(up to and including China:)...

Handle appears to be European beech... Lacquered for long-term storage,possibly rubbed like that in a shipping crate coming from...?...

Probably a totally usable tool.
 
My guess is it was originally sold in Canada. They had a lot of those flat stock axes (as I recall from 300Six).
 
I can't say. I think they were made in Germany at one time. Later China. But I don't know the dates.
 
There are two marks on the head. One is 600. The other is difficult to read through the paint. I think I will scrape the paint off and see if I can read what it says. I'll post a photo if there's anything to see.
 
I can't tell you anything with certainty, but the eye shape and handle along with the lack of a typical European stamp signal China to me. It still may be fine.
 
Quick question about beech. We have some sort of beech, not sure of the species. Ive thought of making handles and slabs out of it but after drying, it seems to get punky really quick. Is this just the particular species? We're in northern california. Ive never thought of beech as a hard wood or in a hickory, maple or walnut class of wood. Or maybe im doing something wrong? The beech trees we have are scattered throughout an old established olive orchard, could that have something to do with it? Apologies for the hijacking.
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
It's definitely beech or ash. You see it here all the time. Its either Fagus Sylvatica (European Beech), Fagus Orientalis (Asian Beech) or a cross between European and Asian Beech called either "Fagus x Taurica" or "Fagus Moesiaca". The non latin name for it would be Crimean Beech. And mind you: Asian Beech is kind of a weird name: It's native in Eastern Europe as well as Western Asia. As is European Beech, since it also grows native in Turkey on the Asian side of the country. But those are only main groups, and all have different susbspecies as well. Its definitely not oak but Beech.

The topic starter hasn't put up a picture yet of the axe in cleaned condition, so we still don't know anything yet?
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I'm glad you're so confident, but how you think that wood in any way resembles ash is beyond me. I know what European beech looks like, and that wood certainly doesn't look typical of the European beech I see on axe handles from actual European producers. It may not actually be oak, but a lot of Chinese tool handles I see have a look very similar to oak, and my statement was that this looks like that. My opinion is that it's likely a Chinese import. But I fully reserve the right to be wrong. :)
 
I defer to guys more wood-knowledgeable for the handle but I bet if you stripped that lacquer off, shaped it up a bit, and made sure it had a good edge on it that it would be make a very serviceable tool regardless of heritage :thumbsup:
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
I'd have to see a photo of the tree? But From what I know, Beech doesn't occur in California naturally, so it could be anything. As for beech in America and Canada: Fagus Grandifolia, only on the east coast though.



As for the ash: That is something you got to be "in the know" about. There is ash that looks the same, but you got to sand it beyond the lacker. There is a trend over here, where cheap budget store stuff gets lackered in weird patterns. Its more or less a dip process. You get al sorts of weird looking grain, but sand it down and you see whats underneath. Thats why I said it could be ash. One of the reasons I don't like lackered handles. And mind you: Axes I'm talking about are actually from Germany, with DIN markings included.

But it is most likely beech. What you see is a small part of subspecies of beech. Most likely not from eastern europe, but from the region of Italy? Even over here (the Netherlands) the species of beech are different compaired to around there. But still both are Fagus Sylvatica.

As for different species of beech in the European Beech (Fagus Sylvatica) catagory:
Fagus sylvatica purpurea
Fagus sylvatica Heterophylla
Fagus sylvatica Tortuosa
Fagus sylvatica Pendula
Fagus sylvatica 'Dawyck'
Fagus sylvatica 'Zlatia'
And thats just a slight selection. So you saying that it doesn't look like beech you've seen is like sayimg: All the coffee tasted the same. There are a shit ton of subspecies out and about. All have different properties. The same Fagus sylvatica from the more nothern parts of europe tend to be stronger: about 710KG/M3. The same Fagus Sylvatica form the Mediteranian/Balkan: 670KG/M3. Same species, different subspecies. Thats all I'm saying....
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Until i get a new phone my picture taking capabilities are zero. The beech trees we have, my father in law planted, so for all i know theyre not even beech trees. These are the first ive seen. He does some pretty off the wall crap, so who knows for sure, my arborist buddy has never seen anything like them before and doesnt know what they are. They just get mushy real fast after cutting.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
The handle looks like the weird oak-like stuff that a lot of cheap Chinese-made tools have. Doesn't look like beech to me.
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It's an interesting line of thought and completely plausible when you think that in Japan the standard axe handle material is Japanese white oak, (Quercus mongolica). A difference between this oak and the more familiar ones in Europe and N. Amer. is regular and compact ray/fleck pattern on the quartered surface, coincidentally enough quite similar to our beech ray fleck appearance https://www.wood-database.com/japanese-oak/. So in the case that the axe in question does in fact have Chinese origins there would be nothing weird about its handle being from this oak. Just the opposite, though it might strike the uninitiated as odd, it would be in fact perfectly consistent with those good ol' "best practices", as they say, in the Chinese context and only add an interesting quality to this axe.
 
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Here some fine examples for possible comparison's sake of typical handle wood from out of the Asiatic zones. Nothing cheap nor weird about it, the contrary being more the case.
 
To be clear, what I mean by "weird" is the visual appearance of the stuff. Oak has those little "spots" in the grain sort of like beech does, but more coarse, and the Chinese stuff looks sort of like red oak that's going through puberty. The grain looks almost like it has pimples, those spots are so prominent. The wood just below the head in your upper example is the closest visually to what I mean. It's just very visually "loud" with how prominent they are.
 
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