A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Making A Tomahawk Helve. My Video Revisited.

6 comments:

John B. Todd said...

What do you finish the wood with or do you just leave it raw?

Keith said...

Hi John. When we were living up in the old cottage I used to like to sit in front of the big open fire place and hand rub lindseed oil into my helves. Then I would prop the helve up where it would get some warmth to help it soak in & later rub some more on.
Now we are in the other house I have no open fire to use, so I have some poly pipe with lindseed oil in it and simply lower the helve into the oil to let it soak as long as I can.

Hutch said...

You've forced me to now get off my butt and produce another helve for my hatchet that broke two weeks ago. It was due to break; only the Lord knows how old the handle was, my guess is that it's at least 30 years old.

Keith said...

Well your old helve has lasted well Hutch.

Unknown said...

Afternoon, i'm looking for information on a tomahawk or axehead that i recently discovered along a waterway while working. It has a small head with a circlelike hole to accommodate a handle and it has markings on it. The marking seems to be a small square with 3 dots in the square and it is located in the center of the axe head.

Any ideas as to what it could possibly be and how old would it be and any history behind it.

Much appreciated.

Keith said...

Hello Ray. Sounds as though it might be an original 18th century trade axe. For more info may I suggest you go to: http://furtradetomahawks.tripod.com/
You can email this chap & ask him if you can't find what you want on his site.
Regards, Keith.