The not-quite axes

U.S. Forest Service photograph — An Ax to Grind (1999), Fig. 25 · public domain

The wildland firefighter’s tool, carrying the name of ranger Ed Pulaski of the 1910 fires: an axe bit for cutting and an adze-set grubbing hoe for digging fireline, on one eye^U — because a fire crew can’t carry two tools apiece.

Who made them True Temper sold it as the Flint Edge “Pulaski or Mattock Axe” — “an increasingly popular Axe, for chopping, grubbing and clearing … used by farmers, nurserymen, forestry service and lumbermen”^TT; Mann listed a 3¾-lb “Pulaski Tool”^MN; Warren carried a “Pulaski or Multi-Use Tool.”^WA

Plumb’s Anchor Brand mattocks — 1906 catalogue, p. 72 · public domain

Half axe, half hoe. The hoe-set blade grubs out earth and the axe-set blade cuts the roots it bares — the clearing tool for stumps and soil that an axe edge should never touch.^U The pick mattock swaps the cutter for a spike.

Who made them Nearly everyone forged them: American Axe & Tool listed mattocks in long- and short-cutter styles^AAT; Douglas^DG, Plumb^PL, and Warren^WA carried them; True Temper ran a whole “Pick and Mattock Axes” page^TT; and Mann’s “Mat-Axe” combination was pitched as “an excellent, all around farm tool.”^MN

Plumb’s Anchor Brand coopers’ adzes — 1906 catalogue, p. 38 · public domain

“A head that gives it the appearance of a hoe, but it is tempered and sharpened to cut wood” — the Forest Service’s own description. Swung between the feet, the curved lip dresses and planes the beam the broad axe roughed out.^U

Who made them Plumb’s Anchor Brand line ran ship carpenters’, railroad — half-head, full-head, even double-bitted — and coopers’ adzes^PL; Douglas listed coopers’, railroad, house, and Spanish patterns in 1877^DG; American Axe & Tool^AAT and True Temper^TT carried them; Collins registered its Legitimus mark for adzes^CO — and the Forest Service manual photographs a Collins lipped shipwright’s adz, a Plumb railroad adz, and a Douglas carpenter’s adz side by side.^U

Plumb’s woodchoppers’ mauls, Washington or Oregon pattern — 1906 catalogue, p. 60 · public domain

Half sledge, half axe. The blunt wedge bit bursts rounds apart along the grain, and the hardened face drives steel wedges — the job an axe poll was never tempered to do.^U

Who made them Plumb’s Anchor Brand woodchoppers’ mauls came in Washington-or-Oregon, Truckee, Detroit, and Lake Superior patterns — “furnished with either Single or Double Bitted Axe Eye” — beside its railroad mauls^PL; Warren’s logging line ran grab mauls — three-inch steel on a 36-inch hickory handle — alongside its splitting wedges^WA; True Temper’s rafting-pattern axe came “specially heat treated and tempered for use as maul.”^TT

Plumb’s Anchor Brand bush hooks — 1906 catalogue, p. 38 · public domain

For brush, briars, and saplings too limber to chop — a springy stem swallows an axe blow, so the hook gathers it against the curve and the inside edge slices. It hangs on a standard axe handle.

Who made them Plumb’s Anchor Brand bush hooks came three ways — on axe handles, in an “Auckland pattern,” and in a two-ring style.^PL

Warren axe-handle hookaroons — 1937 catalog, p. 29

No edge at all: a light, downswept beak on an axe eye. Sorters and rivermen speared billets, slabs, and pulpwood and hauled them close without stooping — a back-saver, not a cutter.

Who made them A Warren specialty: its 1937 logging catalog runs pickaroons and hookaroons — “for handling pulp wood, cedar posts, etc. … made of one piece of high carbon steel … equipped with hickory axe handles” — plus a lumber sorter’s pattern.^WA

Plumb’s Anchor Brand coopers’ froes — 1906 catalogue, p. 74 · public domain

The riving knife. Set across the end grain, struck on its back with a wooden club, then levered — it splits shingles, staves, and clapboards along the grain, where a saw would cut across it. The deliberately dull edge follows the wood; that is the point.

Who made them Plumb listed coopers’ froes in its 1906 catalogue.^PL