Axes Follow Me

I stopped collecting axes about 15 years when I realized that I had more axes than I could use. If I were a large guy I suppose I could swing an axe in each hand, but I am not Paul Bunyan, though my father was, he could swing a double bitted axe with each hand and run chainsaw while holding it in his mouth. 

There is a quiver of axes in my shop, here's a short list: my grandfather's Kelly double bitted axe that he used back in the 1930's and 1940's when he was a logger; my father-in-law's double bitted axe he had made for him by a blacksmith back in the early 1930's when he was cutting wood for mine tunnels in Colorado; and my Collins boy axe that my father bought for me when I was ten years old. There are more axes in the quiver, but I want to talk about how axes find me now that I don't look for them.

My wife and I are renovating a 110 plus year old adobe house, everyday we work on it I am thankful that I was a professional carpenter and a historic preservation carpenter. I love to work on old houses, I always learn a trick or technique from those old carpenters that originally built the houses.

After we removed the ceiling latillas and the dirt that covered them, I put down a tongue and groove boards over the vigas and while I was doing that I noticed something sitting on the adobe wall just next to a roof rafter. It was a single bit axe head. In the next rafter bay there was a shingling hatchet.

The two axe heads.

I took these downstairs and showed them to my wife, she proceeded to laugh and said, "I guess axes just follow you around! They always find you!"

The shingling axe/hatchet had its hammer claws broken off at some point in its career.

As you can see the hatchet is a True Temper Flint Edge brand...

...that was once the property of the Union Pacific Railroad. Notice the "UP" marks. This hatchet might have been used for trimming and working on railroad ties, it really isn't a shingling hatchet. Our house was built during the decade that the Las Trampas Lumber Company was logging the ponderosa forests that surround us. Most of the trees were hacked into railroad ties and floated down the Rio Santa Barbara to the Rio Grande to Albuquerque. It is said that over 1 million ties were floated down from the Santa Barbara drainage to Albuquerque. The Union Pacific Railroad employed many men from Northern New Mexico before World War II, maybe someone who lived in the house may have worked for the UP.

The single bit axe head is in great shape, a few dings and dents from use, but it wasn't abused.  From what little research I have done on the Internet, apparently the "P" means it was made by the Marion Toolworks. I haven't weighed the head yet, it is probably close to 2.75 pounds.

Finding the single bit head means that I now three smaller axe heads to helve! I might ask a blacksmith friend if he wants the hatchet for use in his blacksmithing demonstrations. I might grind the hammer head on the hatchet a bit, maybe reshape the bit also, but that means I would have to make time to do that. Right now I have a house to work on and a classical guitar to finish!

Now, get out into your shop and make something!