Posted 7 years ago
blunderbuss2
(199 items)
A bit of KY. Know this "local colour" who has an amazing collection of tools etc. in his shop. He is a saddle maker, but hard to tell by the assorted other things he has. I know what the 1st one is but the 2nd has us both stumped. Oh no, I'm picking up a KY accent !! Get me out of here ! I knew I was slipping when I started understanding them.
The filed grooves on both sides is a mystery to us. He made the handle for it but it doesn't resemble anything we have seen in axes. I know the 1st one, so let's see how our experts do .
Hint: Not native American.
I'm pretty sure this is a stone-mason's hammer. The filed grooves would give it a "saw-tooth" effect, like a lot of parallel chisels, for smoothing a surface. It's been abused some, and that handle makes it un-useable. :-)
If its for stone, it will be hardened & I will check that.
Looks like bb2 could use it for pounding his meat, and bb2 made me say it !!!!
Hey Phil, I steered around it on that poste ! LOL ! Glad, at least one person caught it. When it gets cold up your way, you'll need a much smaller mallet. LOL !
The first picture reminds me of a maple syrup tree hole maker, it looks also like it could be used to lift with .
Trey is a mason he might know about #2
No cigar, Caper.
Trey, get out of that FL sun & look at this "thang".
I saw similar hammers like this, and coincidently, you said the previous owner worked with leather. The one that I saw was to beat leather for making horse collars into the proper shape.
I think that MacDaddyRico could have called it.
First one a wheelwright's reamer? anyway to drill a big hole ;-))
Well, I'm pretty stumped on the hammer/axe looking "thang" but doesn't seem like a stone working tool to me. Since you mentioned bourbon I think the first tool is for making bung holes in bourbon barrels, is it not?
Bung hole auger and reamer.
Oh yea, really like that new "profile" photo!!!
DING ! Acrodog has it, although I rather liked Thomas' ear war remover idea. Clem says it is 130 yrs old, although I didn't note any dates. Yeah Nick, I thought a pix of what many CW followers mentally picture me as, was appropriate.
More from Clem to follow.
Hotair, Google did have a site for "hammers used for making horse collars". To use an Island expression, "The more I looked, the more I didn't see it".
If you Google "Images for Antique Stone Hammer" you will find several hammers of this shape and other variations with the "serrated" edge/face.
UncleRon, I went thru all of the pix & only saw 1 or 2 that came close. I posted a stone hammer that had teeth on the face & it was correctly ID'd. I feel that we are beating around the bush without seeing the bush. I feel that Phil will come up with a sly innuendo about my last comment.
The first one is a reamer. If he was a Cooper the hammer could have been used to fit rings on barrels, and the reamer for the bunghole.
Why the filed groves then ? Finally got Clem & he is going to check the hardness.
First one is definitely a taper reamer...probably for bungholes in barrels, but possibly for setting furniture legs into the seats. The slot in the side is either one for clearing the shavings, or contained a loose extra blade to carve the sides of the hole into the taper. The axe is probably a cooper's axe, though it's been beat to hell. Those grooves weren't originally all the way to the edge. There was a sharpened edge that extended beyond the grooves, for splitting and carving down the staves for the barrels. The grooves were in a little ledge on the side that let the cooper bang the hoops on to the barrel.
Oh, and the blunter side of the axe was likely for banging in rivets in the hoops.
Sounds reasonable. It is bourbon distilling country.