Hell no, that thing is gonna see a lot of use. If I break that handle in a few years or there's a flaw in it I didn't catch, I'll make another one! Tools are meant to be used, and I've got a lot of late 1800's-early 1900's hand tools I use regularly. Old stanley hand planes, some chisels, braces, etc. A little rust or pitting is nothing. You get them tuned right and they'll out-perform all but the most expensive modern tools. My grandfather made picture frames, some of them surround art in the Fine Arts Museum of the South in Mobile from when my grandmother was a docent there. I didn't appreciate the quality of hand-tool work when I was younger, and even as a trim carpenter in my 20's I didn't appreciate it. As I got older though, and started doing more and more intricate work, there's no power tool out there that can give as clean of a cut or as smooth of a finished surface as hand tools. I wish I'd gotten more of his old tools when he passed, especially all the shaper planes he had made over the decades, but I'm happy with the tools I do have and like to make sure they're not just decorations on a shelf somewhere.
Agree!
I use an old screwdriver for my scrapers, works wonderfully. Roofing hatchets tend to have a smaller axe head and are lighter, but it might be an old lathers hatchet. I've just always known the style as a carpenters hatchet. Can't see it in the photo, but there's some old stamps in the flats and the eye was definitely drifted into place with a slight taper that made fitting it a challenge
Now that I look at it again, yeah it's likely not a lather. They typically have like a 2 inch blade, and they have a tapered hammer head... that's also smooth. That way when they hand drive a sheetrock nail they leave a slight small impression after it countersinks them. Then the nails will be recessed for the mud work later. Ironically I have a modern sheetrock hammer in my truck and it for some reason has a wafflehead lol. Not sure what they was thinking there. So yeah I'd say this is definitely either a roofing hatchet or carpenters hatchet as u said.
Nice work. I currently have the exact same ‘carpenters’ hatchet on my workbench. It’s had a bit of customization to it. I think I’m going to use Purpleheart for the handle.
Hatchet was also used to score sheet rock for arches, rolling sheets, etc. There is a great video where a guy sheetrocks a room with an arched doorway in a minute out there on the web somewhere.
PM me, that’s what I do.
Flat blade with the point on the other end is a chipping hammer, we use them.
Correct,the other in the pic is a sheet metal hammer. There is also a ball peen out of picture. The very beginning of handle shaping with East Indian Rosewood on the sheet metal hammer.
