Official Pipe Axe-Hawk Picture Thread

[Just Duke]

Official Pipe Axe-Hawk Picture Thread

[Boerrancher]

Well I guess I will start this off. All of my axes and hawks are very traditional if you go back over a thousand years here in North America. Everything is made with traditional stone age tools even the handles are cut and shaped with stone tools.

This is a brown stone celt, with a dog wood handle.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/100_2382.jpg

I will post more when photo bucket decides to work

Best wishes,

Joe

[rhbrink]

Wow Boerrancher how long would it take to chop that tree down? How long did it take you to make the ax? Would you have resharpen the ax? What's the reason for the dog wood handle? Easy to make, available, strong? Hope that you don't mind the questions?

Richard

[Just Duke]

Well I guess I will start this off. All of my axes and hawks are very traditional if you go back over a thousand years here in North America. Everything is made with traditional stone age tools even the handles are cut and shaped with stone tools.

This is a brown stone celt, with a dog wood handle.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/100_2382.jpg

I will post more when photo bucket decides to work

Best wishes,

Joe

Dogwood is a tough wood. Did you also include the root ball like you were using as club to accompany a froe?
Nice work by the way.

[Boerrancher]

Wow Boerrancher how long would it take to chop that tree down? How long did it take you to make the ax? Would you have resharpen the ax? What's the reason for the dog wood handle? Easy to make, available, strong? Hope that you don't mind the questions?

Richard

To answer all of your questions, I can chop a tree as fast or faster with a stone axe as a person can a steel one, and as long as you use a stone axe properly, and keep it out of the dirt and rocks, the cutting edge will last a life time with out having to be re sharpened. The reason for the dogwood handle is first it is traditional, but most likely the reason it was, is that once dogwood cures, it becomes harder and more durable than bone or antler. Using traditional tools and methods, it takes 40 to 60 hours to shape and sharpen the axe head, and about 30 hours to make the handle.

I use to take orders and make them to sell, but it got to be too much for me. Now I only do one or two a year. There have been many Doctoral Thesis in the archeology field written and published on the use of stone tools that featured one of my axes and the statistics of it's use as a wood working tool. I have always said, primitive does not mean slow and ineffective, it only means it was the first.

Here is a photo of the cutting edge. It is as sharp or sharper than steel.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/Lithicarts/100_2391.jpg

Best wishes,

Joe

[dragonrider]

Nice lookin tool Joe.

[Boerrancher]

Now that photo bucket is working a bit better I will post a few more photos of the various axes and hawks I make and use.

Here is a war hawk. The head is knapped out of flint and once again it has a dogwood handle. The head is secured like most un-grooved axe heads, by cutting a tapered hole in the handle that matches the taper of the stone head. This piece since it is a weapon and not used for cutting wood, the head is also secured with pine pitch glue and then bound with a dog bane plant fiber I twisted into cordage.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/Lithicarts/100_1834.jpg

Here is my personal camp axe. It is of the typical celt design just like the first axe I posted above, the axe head is fitted to the handle with a tapered hole. On a wood chopping axe or celt as this design type is called the head is not glued in place, making it removable, by simply bumping the back side of it. By removing it from the handle you can use it as a wedge or even a chisel simply by holding it in your hand and striking the back end with the handle. As I said this is my personal axe. It goes to and is used at all the rendezvous, as well as when I am just out camping. It is also a nice hunting companion for when it comes time to split the brisket or pelvis on a large whitetail or elk.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/Lithicarts/101_1716.jpg

Here is what is called a full groove axe. The hafting groove circumscribes the entire axe head. This is the earliest design of stone axe here in North America. It was abandoned after less than a thousand years of use because the head would not stay tight in the handle with prolonged use. The handle was split and the head placed between the two halves and then secured tightly with rawhide. Because of the design, the handle was not to swing this tool by, but more to pick it up and drop it with, allowing the weight of the head to do the work. Notice the back end is much larger than the bit end.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/Lithicarts/Fullgrooveaxe.jpg

The cutting edges on these stone axes and hawks were as sharp or sharper than modern steel. Stone such as granite, basalt and green stone, could be be sharpened to a razors edge and kept that way for years by using the tool properly. The disadvantage of a stone axe is that it breaks much easier than steel when you are not careful. One wrong swing that causes a glancing blow, and 40 to 60 hours of work has just become useless.

It seems like a great deal of time to spend making a tool, but if you actually figure the amount of time it took to make a steel axe in the 1600's to the mid 1800's, from gathering and smelting raw materials, then forging, and finishing, I am not so sure the stone axe was not faster to make for an individual.

Best wishes,

Joe

[Doc Highwall]

Thanks for the pictures and write up Joe.

[rhbrink]

That is some good stuff there! I had no idea about the dog wood there is very little around my area of West central Mo. I do see some in the spring around the southern reaches of Truman lake and of course on farther south it's quite common. When I was a kid there was a local guy that had a ax like the full groove that you were describing. He said that he had found it just west of where I live in the Big Creek bottoms. That area is way off limits for me but he did have quite a collection all local stuff. I am surprised that the stone tools will hold a edge like you describe. Good stuff I really enjoyed seeing it, thanks.

Richard

[JeffinNZ]

Joe, you're a legend!

[Glassman66]

Well I guess I will start this off. All of my axes and hawks are very traditional if you go back over a thousand years here in North America. Everything is made with traditional stone age tools even the handles are cut and shaped with stone tools.

This is a brown stone celt, with a dog wood handle.
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk155/Boerrancher/100_2382.jpg



I will post more when photo bucket decides to work

Best wishes,

Joe



Do you go the flint knapping event over at Boonville? I really need to go over there if this is an example of what would be there.



Randy

[Just Duke]

OH my! This thread was suppose to be posted in the Black power section. OOPS!

[waksupi]

http://furtradetomahawks.tripod.com/

Hawks and hatchets.

[No_1]

It was. It was moved here because it is NOT a black powder weapon.


OH my! This thread was suppose to be posted in the Black power section. OOPS!

[Just Duke]

It was. It was moved here because it is NOT a black powder weapon.

What about that new kit section? I think that has knives and such.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Another point about the time it takes to make a tool in those days. They didn't have TV ! So keeping busy making tools, clothes and weapons is what you did at night after you got home from all day hunting for food.

Randy