What is the square bit on the back of an adze head meant for?
Discussion Forum
Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well
Get It All!
UNLIMITED Membership is like taking a master class in woodworking for less than $10 a month.
Start Your Free TrialCategories
Discussion Forum
Digital Plans Library
Member exclusive! – Plans for everyone – from beginners to experts – right at your fingertips.
Highlights
-
Shape Your Skills
when you sign up for our emails
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. -
Shop Talk Live Podcast -
Our favorite articles and videos -
E-Learning Courses from Fine Woodworking
-
-
Replies
So when you whip that sucker back, it don't cut you when you whack yersef in the haid.
It's another one of those safety features that they left out of the survey.
Just leaves a square hole?Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.—John Cardinal Newman
Disputantum Semirotten Woodworking
Yup, and it's sort of like a non surgical lobotomy. I've had this performed several times. Not that it shows.
I think it's for driving in a splitting wedge.
Paul
Yep. It also adds weight and balance.
Thanks. I figured as much, but I wanted confirmation.Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.—John Cardinal Newman
Disputantum Semirotten Woodworking
Unfortunately ............
How did our ancestors every survive?
It's incredible we made it to this point in history.
Helmet laws for adze handlers!
Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.—John Cardinal Newman
Disputantum Semirotten Woodworking
AdzeStop. It will reverse your swing in milliseconds. The only problem is it embeds the cutting head in your boot so you'll have to buy new ones if you activate it.
Paul
Paul,
I wouldn't opt for the AdzeStop. I'd wait for Festool's upcoming UltraAdze, which comes with its own Systainer, and can be connected to the Festool dust collection system.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
....Festool chip-collecting system, shurely? (which will be 100% efficient, naturally).
Incidentally, why is it called an adz? Shurely it should be called a subtractz?
Lataxe, an amateur etymologist.
Latadze,
It is called an adze because it is a pain in the adze.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Why is it called an adz? One of my distant Scot relatives surnamed Naismith, a blacksmith, was very frugal with his money and had the local printer print up a bunch of flyers that he tacked on trees to promote business. Thus the tool was called an adz.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Lataxe,
My dictionary says that adz, adze, is from the Anglo-Saxon "adesa" , meaning ax, or hatchet.
Other names for the tool, according to Salaman, are "Addes, Jennet, and Thixel. A Scots form is Eatche. 'Let me hae a whample at him wi' mine eatche- that's a' ' Sir Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor, XXV" Later, in the adze description, he uses the term "howel, or howle" for the short cooper's or chairmaker's tool. In cooperage, a howel is apparently, the bevelled surface inside a barrel where the groove for the head is cut, as well as the tool used to make said bevel.
Given the number of wide ranging names for this tool, it is hard to say howe'l get to the bottom of it. Best to just say to eatche his own and be done. 'Adz my recommendation, and thix'l be my last word.
Ray
Ray,
You are an Eruditionary of the First Order and your certificate will be coming soon so that all may know your wise status!
Incidentally, daughter Number One is called Jennett, a Lancashire form of Janet (or so I believed). However, the axe-meaning shall be transmitted to her at an opportune moment. ("My darling girl, you are becoming a battle-Jennett in your maturity and must remember that daddy is always correct").
Latjennet, a fully qualified daughter-victim, I mean dad.
Lataddes,
If eruditionary means reading from a book, then I can do erudititiousness with the best of 'em.
Ray
Ray,
You are very eruditional.I love the English language. I can do things to it that are worse than the things I do to wood.When I first heard the term "proselytize", I wondered,
"If a person proselytizes, does that make that person a "proselytude"?MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
proselytizer? Not to be confused with proser, someone like me, you or Latadze, or poseur, someone like, well, you know.
Actually, proselyte is both a noun, "a convert" and a verb, "to convert". I looked it up.
Wouldn't proselytude be the state of becoming proselytized?
Proselydude: a young, hip, male novitiate.
Proselytute: an initiate into the oldest profession.
If you can find a book, Words at Play, ed: Clifton Fadiman (I believe) I think you'd enjoy it.
Ray
Ray,A BOOK!
You want me to read a book!Now I know where you get all those ideas.
I used to think that you dreamed them up. OK, so maybe I'll look at a book.
Does it have pictures?
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel,
There are a few pictures, actually, but not as many as you'd expect in a book about words...;-)
It's in almanac form. And the Editor is Willard Espy, not Fadiman, who edited another anthology called the Mathematical Magpie. My bad.
From today's entry, we learn that "sabotage" if from the French "sabot" wooden shoe, which peasants were wont, when dissatisfied, to throw into the works of woollen mills, wrecking the machinery.
No pictures on this page :(
Ray
Ray,
I will look up the book.
Sounds like a fun one.
I have always enjoyed entymology. I can't spell it, but I enjoy it. Took three years of Latin in High School. Amazing how much it has helped over the decades. Well, not much here in Knots, but in real life, it does.
:-)
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Books? Books are an ancient form of thought conveyance, invented long before the internet or the Vulcan Mind Meld. They now keep books in places called "libraries", which are large dusty buildings run by people known as "libraians". Librarians look really intelligent. I don't know if they are, but they sure look that way. I think a job requirement is that they have to wear that kind of glasses that are perched on the end of their noses. Those glasses make you look pensive. If you can look pensive enough, then they'll excuse you if you're not real smart. I think my grandparents used one of those library places, but that was back in the dark ages at night.
I READ that!
What a bunch of hooey for a simple question!
I think the tool you have is a ship adze. I think the spikey looking thing is for driving down pegs. Carpenters' foot adzes typically don't have this feature (nor the lipped edges). They just have a squared-off poll. This tool was used to smooth the hull planking. Those planks were pegged in place. I think you'd set those a little deeper, then shave off the material around them. I think the ship adz is unique in that it's designed for curved work (like you'd find on a hull). Watch out for the lips as they do indeed bite.
They are also unique in that they were used until recently, so there are many around in fairly good shape. I watched my brother use one on the hull of the plug for the Cherubini 48 schooner about 30 years ago. That adz belonged to my grandfather and is the one in the picture attached. I think carpenters stopped needing adzes when machine sawn lumber became available 150-200 years ago or so. Ship adzes were used in the early 20th century.
People who've never used one of these sometimes romanticize about them as dangerous hacking tools. They are half right. This is the only tool I have that scares me (then again, I don't have any power tools or even a chain saw). The adz is a smoothing/hewing tool capable of producing very fine flat surfaces. I think it's a mistake to try to hack too much material with it. Mine is as sharp as a kitchen knife.
In the attached picture, I'm flattening the tops of my saw horses. If you saw the finished product, you'd think it was planed.
Adam
Mine doesn't look like the one in your picture; it has the squared-off poll and no lips. Thanks for the info anyway. If I come across one, I'll know what it is.
Here's an interesting specimen: Railroad Adze
Nothing would be done at all if a man waited till he could do it so well
that no one could find fault with it.—John Cardinal Newman
Disputantum Semirotten Woodworking
Edited 5/18/2008 5:04 pm ET by Disputantum
Minus the setting spike and lips it's just an ordinary carpenter's adze. The square poll is really just for weight and balance, like somebody said. Of course you could strike something with it, but likely you would have an axe or a sledge with you to better handle those rough tasks.
People think of adzes as dangerous tools, but when kept very very sharp, and on green wood (where they are most often used) for house/barn framing, fence rails and railroad ties/sleepers, they are quite controllable.
They're not swung like an axe, but brought down in a controlled arc between the legs either standing on or straddling the beam. As Adam said (I think) they are more for taking thinnish 1/8-inch or less shavings to clean up after hewing (for fancy work), for flattening the crown of a joist to lay flooring or to work arcs in knee braces and such in timber framing.
David Carroll
Adam,
That is interesting adz-informatrion, now secreted in my little store.
Incidentally, how is the leg since they sewed it back on? I hope you only bit-off one of them when you operated your adz as shown in the pic. One feels you are too keen to show off your stockings, possibly to excite a certain type of lady (the ones who like lace hankies and men in big hats).
ANyway, I will have a word with my green woodworking friends to see if they can spare some of their adz-leggings for you. They are not elegant, being made of hessian sack, straw and baling twine. However, they certaily reduce adz-bite down to a mere nip, as I can personally testify.
Lataxe, still all in one piece.
I swing my adz directly under my foot. In theory, your foot is like the "wear" of a plane, holding down the wood ahead of the blade to prevent simply splitting the wood. The other reason is that the adz can pick up a chip or hit a knot, nail, or or just hit crooked and deflect into a shin if you are straddling the work. This way, a slip can bring the adz onto, or more likely under, your leather shoe. That's the theory anyway. Unbeknownst to me, this adz' lips sunk into the thick leather soles of these shoes about 3/8". It's a tool I won't use when tired or when the light is failing. Adam
Adam,
I saw your post and thought it appropriate that I add to the hooey.Adzes, like Love, are different things to different people. There are more types of adzes than you can shake a stick at. I used one that is tiny, about an inch wide, with an edge equivalent to a #10 sweep on a carving gouge. It was made for making little bowls. The most intriguing adze I have ever used, albeit for only a minute, because my arm was about to fall off, is the one in the attached photo. I met a bowl maker named Rip Mann two years ago at the Waterford Festival (Virginia) and saw the bowls that he sells for over $500 apiece. I was really intrigued. Would anyone pay $500 for a hand hewn bowl. The answer is a resounding yes, as Rip has discovered. He showed me his adze, which he has Jim Wester make at North Bay Forge. It is 2.5" across the blade and weighs 2.5 pounds. After swinging it a few times, my arm was ready for some Advil. Notice the shape of the adze. Rip designed it in his quest for excellence in bowl making. I tried using a lighter adze to make bowls but I quickly found that you need the heft to remove wood fast enough. Rip's adze works, but he has developed a right arm which is the size of a tree trunk. Great adze, but only good for one thing. I wouldn't use this adze to try to flatten a log. It is what is known as "an Elbow" adze. One swings it from the elbow. The adzes to flatten a log are swung from the shoulder. I have learned a bunch about adzes in the past two year. The most important thing that I have learned is that it takes a lot of skill to use one well.Well, that is my addition to the hooey.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
I agree with you, fine work can be done. I did a fireplace mantle and the wife complained because it was too smooth. I had to work at making it look like a hacked up barn beam.
My Adz is labeled. W Hunt Cast Steel Mfg by Douglas Mfg Co Does that ring any bells?Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
what in the hail is an adze?
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled