All About Pocket Knives

In addition to pocket knives, I'm a big fan of old American double-bit axes. Must be the Oregon boy in me.

I've recently obtained two cruiser axe heads (~2.5 lb vs 3.5+ lb for regular heads), my grandfather's Collins "Legitimus" and another stamped "Wards Master Quality."

I have no idea who the maker was on the Wards axe, but the old Monkey Ward stuff is pretty special to me. My grandfather worked for Wards from after WWII until the early 80's, so everything we had while I was growing up was stamped Wards, Western Field, Hawthorne, etc. I didn't know anybody else made guns or auto parts until about 1986. The old Wards stuff was top quality and built to last. He and my grandmother just retired their circa 1985 Wards microwave.

We sure lost something when the old department stores with their American-made house brands fell out of fashion. But that's a rant for another time, I think.

Anyway, anybody else out there like old axes?

Dan

I have a hankering to use a double now and then! I have an old Stiletto hand axe, I'll get a picture of her shortly, it's down with all the camp stuff!

How about a pick-a-roon or a pike pole, you can't beat those around the camp fire!!

Hey, you're right, a pickaroon would be good for a fire! I have a pulaski in my camp gear that often gets used for that, but I think your idea is better.

I bet my grandfather has a peavey lying around somewhere. I think he may have to keep a better eye on me when I'm poking around in his woodshed...

gmusic I tried to send you a PM but I think the process overtaxed my little brain. Anyway here's the text of it:

What's the story on Stiletto axes? I ran across one today, double bit, maybe two pounds. Smaller than a cruiser even. It was pretty well used, ground down to the point of being asymmetric. Still it was marked $70.

It seemed like an awfully handy little axe, but that's pretty costly. I can't seem to find any information about them other than they were made by True Temper/Kelly.

Thanks,

Dan

Here you go Dan.....

http://www.stilettotools.com/

Didn't see axes anymore, but maybe I missed them.

Bill

Hi Dan, Just found your post. I got a M over W Lakeside-Special-Tradehand-Mark Made double bit Wards axe and its a dandy. Ill work on getting some pics. I also have Lewistown PA. MANNS, Warren PA. Old Faithfuls, Sagers and Kellys and Collins. Ive had my eye on a Kelly Black Raven for a while now but just cant seem to come up with one. Oh I forget to mention bark spuds, pevies, cant hooks and a few cross cut saws. I got enough stuff to be a logger if I could only afford the insurance I just LOVE sharp stuff !! Talk later, Mikek

Thanks, Bill. Interesting story on Stiletto. I've seen ax heads advertised and apparently stamped as "Stiletto by True Temper" but the website doesn't address why.

Mikek, always nice to meet someone of like mind. I worked in the woods for several years after the service and during college, and, Lord, I miss it still. Of course, I never would have been tough enough to be a logger in the days of steam donkey, 5 pound ax, and misery whip! Those were men.

I always check out flea markets and trading posts. I'll keep my eyes peeled for a Kelly Black Raven for you. You look for a 6' Atkins #51 bucking saw for me. Sound good?

Sounds like a plan to me Dan

All this loggin' language makes me feel like a kid again. Peavey, spud, misery whip, steam donkey, wow! My great-granddad had a logging business down around Reedsport Oregon during WWI. My granddad was exempted, for a while, from the draft because they were cutting ships knees. He said they could make big money doing that, $4, $5 maybe even $6 on a good day. My great uncle & granddad (they were brothers), donated some stuff to a logging museum up around Seaside Oregon. I haven’t made it up to the museum yet, but hope to get there some day.

As a kid, growing up in the mountains of Southern Oregon, it was not unusual to find an old steam donkey or other old logging equipment abandoned in the mountains somewhere. There was one not far from our ranch. When they switched over to diesel engines to yard logs with they apparently figured the old steam donkeys weren’t worth the expense & effort of hauling them out of the woods and just left them where they last used them.

During the Depression Grandpa cruised timber for the CCC. My dad still has some of Grandpa’s reports on different sections of land.

At some period of time, probably after WWI, Grandpa worked at a foundry near Reedsport. While working there he made a hatchet & a knife. The knife was made (I think) from a file. He made it with a cast aluminum handle. He carried the hatchet & knife with him all the years he cruised timber for the CCC.

Dad gave me the knife but is keeping the hatchet for a while longer. It is mine when he is through it, which is fine with me. I hope he keeps it for a long time to come.

Dale

Cool heirlooms Dale.

I know what all those logging terms are except the misery whip. I'd guess at maybe a 2 man saw ?

Every once in a while I see big spikes with a length of hand forged chain tying them together. Used I think, to build log rafts to get the timber from up-state Pa. & N.Y. to the sawmills down river. Those were the days when place names like Foul Rift & Dead Man's Eddy originated.

Fran

Sauconian wrote:Cool heirlooms Dale.

I know what all those logging terms are except the misery whip. I'd guess at maybe a 2 man saw ?

Fran

You guessed it Fran!
Another term I heard old time loggers use is "riding the saw." This was when the guy on one end of the saw would not pull & push equal to his partner, but let his partner do more than half the work. This usually led to a fight.

The old timers are gone now. There weren’t many of them even when I was a kid.

Loggin’ was, and still is, one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The old timers were tough, and then they were usually broken up. There were lots of loggin’ widows back in the day. One of the causes was so common that it received the name “widow maker.” That is where a tree hangs up in another tree and doesn’t fall all the way to the ground. It is also used of a large limb that is broken off and hangs up in another tree. Some of the limbs can be 1-2 feet in diameter.
My granddad had his back beat to pieces, and had it fused in the 1930s. Dad said it was from driving the old log trucks with hard rubber tires.

My dad used to fall timber, but his first job in the lumber industry was at a mill (he was in high school), as a “pond rat” Those were the guys who pushed the logs across the pond to the chain that took them up into the mill.

There was an enormous amount of waste in the old methods of logging and milling. Most every town in Oregon had at least one mill, and every mill had a “Wigwam Burner” where the scraps & sawdust was burned. I saw a whole mill burn down, caused by sparks from the wigwam burner. Sometimes it would burn up the whole town.
When I grew up most every small town had a huge metal wigwam burner that dominated the skyline. There are very few left any more.

Even the preachers were tough. There was a preacher who used to make a circuit of loggin’ camps here in Oregon & Washington. His name was Teddy Leavitt. The loggers looked forward to the entertainment as they were way far out in the woods & didn’t get to town very often.

The ritual went something like this:
Teddy would drive his team into the loggin’ camp and set up his tent. He would be inside getting ready to preach and one of the loggers would cut one of the ropes that held up the tent.
The tent would hall down on Teddy.
Teddy would crawl out and ask who did it.
No one would answer.
Teddy would say. “Alright, I want the biggest baddest guy in camp. I am gonna’ whip him. And when I do you all are gonna’ come hear me preach. If he whips me I will pack my tent and leave.”

Those who knew Teddy say he never lost a fight. But he did preach many a sermon with one eye swollen shut, with a split lip, or some other evidence that the other fellow wasn’t pullin’ his punches for the preacher.

Them old boys were tough as “cork boots.”

Dale

thanks dale.

Dale, This is an outstanding history lesson !! Thanks. Mikek

Pop and his older brother, Hugh, used to log the virgin timber, down in southern Arkansas.

They used a crosscut to fell the trees, of course. But a double-bit to trim limbs and such. Pop was always partial to Keen-Kutter. He kept one until I came home from the Navy. We were cuttin' firewood, and I was trimming limbs. The head slid off that old axe and twirled around a few times, landed on my index finger, right at the knuckle. That session ended at the ER - and when we got home, Pop chucked that old axe, into the dump.

They were cuttin' logs back then, so large, that one 16-foot cut was all a team could do, to haul it to the mill. It sometimes took 3 days, to get one tree outta the woods. They were tickled, to get a dollar a day, apiece.

Uncle Hugh got married, and moved to Texas, to log the big thicket down there - Pop went to work at the sawmill. Worked just long enough to buy a banjo from Monkey Wards, and then went on the radio...

The big sawdust pile smoldered, constantly didn't it ? It burnt down pretty much everything in Kingsland, Ark., at one time or another. Nobody complained - the mill would give 'em the lumber to build another house. The virgin timber is all gone now, except for one tiny 80-acre spot. I've got a picture somewhere, I'll try to post it, if I can find it.

Peaveys, cant-hooks, pike poles -- what memories !!!

Take care,
JR

JR...you said your dad bought a guitar and went on the radio. If you don't mind me asking, did he make it big? Or in other words, someone that maybe I would have heard of here in good ole KY? Just curious and glad to see you posting again.


Brad

Hey Brad,

(Chuckling) Naw, I seriously doubt anyone ever heard of Shelby Cooper and the Dixie Mountaineers... 1939-1941, and then the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. After the war, he never played professionally - spent all his time keeping me outta trouble, I guess.

Boy, he could handle that double-bit axe, though... wish I still had it.

He and Skeeter Davis were buddies, tho. Momma and Skeeter used to trade recipes, backstage at the Opry.

Nostalgic JR

Don't know how old this is, looks like original handle? Blade stamped THE GEM No2. Can't find any info on maker

Dale and others;
Thought you folks might be interested in the attached info. Was in my local rag last week. I pulled this from the net, My Son worked for Browning a few years back.
moss

Ever wonder if you could hack it as a logger?

Tune in to “Ax Men,” a 13-part History Channel series that follows four Northwest Oregon logging crews through a season on the job. The series makes its debut at 10 p.m. March 9.

Last August, dozens of local loggers showed up for a casting call at the Lone Fir Bar & Grill in Castle Rock, hoping to catch the eye of producers from Thom Beers’ Original Productions of Burbank, Calif. Many of the loggers said they were fans of the shows “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery Channel and “Ice Road Truckers” on The History Channel, both of which were created by Original Productions.

Ultimately, though, “Ax Men” producers decided to use Pihl Logging Company of Vernonia, J.M. Browning and Gustafson Logging, both of Astoria, and Stump Branch Logging of Buxton. But that’s not because producers didn’t like the pickings at the Lone Fir.

Thanks WB.

I will have to watch for it.

Dale

This is a fairly big one as axes go. It's about 13 1/2 " left. Could of been a 14 or 15 when new.
As far as I know the 15 was about the biggest faller(feller) they used on the West Coast. The big one took a full 48" handle. I can't imagine walking with it much less swinging it.
moss.

P.S. Hey all you erstwhile loggers, lets see some of them old woods tools.

That one would definately have needed a delicate touch! I've felled my share of trees with an axe, and I cannot imagine having a 15" double bit head.....that's some serious cutting horsepower!

Bark River Prototype Goose Wing Hatchet



Jackie