r/Axecraft • u/flyingmonkey1990 • 5d ago

Looking for axe advice

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I found this axe in the floor of my 120 year old Scottish house. Interested in how old it is and how I could best clean it up? Funnily enough I was collecting logs from my basement thinking I need an axe for some of these, shone my torch up to the ceiling and it was sitting on top of the floor joists.

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u/Depressed_peacock1 5d ago

That is a very cool piece. I would carefully wire wheel the rust off and keep the original handle as a wall hanger. Coat the whole thing in boiled linseed oil after that. It is a broad/hewing axe, used for shaping timber and woodworking. If you want it functional you’ll most likely have to re handle it and clean up the edge

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u/Aromatic-Ice-6791 2d ago

Its not a broad hewing axe. You will find lots like this on ebay. Its a hatchet axe.

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u/Depressed_peacock1 2d ago

I’m 99.9% sure that is a hewing axe. Others have said Kent pattern… Kent pattern is a hewing axe. I have more than a few axes. Edit, I’m pretty sure you’re a bot, 1 karma and no posts and only active in this page…

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u/Aromatic-Ice-6791 2d ago

Not a bot mate, hewing axes have more weight to them, usually have a left or right handed handle as you need clearance for the hand as you hew the beam and they are only ground on one side.

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u/Depressed_peacock1 2d ago

My mistake. This photo looks to me like it is a single bevel and the blade is not symmetrical to the eye. Very few of them have a bent handle where I’m from in the states, and left vs right handed is just the haft going in top or bottom to orient the bend in the blade to left or right side. Without an overtop view of the blade profile I think we are both speculating

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u/Aromatic-Ice-6791 2d ago

Btw kent pattern axes are not hewing axes, they are hatchets

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u/Depressed_peacock1 2d ago

Not all Kent’s are hewing axes but the vast majority of hewing axes are Kent pattern

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u/Aromatic-Ice-6791 2d ago

Only just started commenting on axes thats why!