The sound an Axe makes - old versus new ...

[dogtag]

The old axes would ring when tapped with a hammer.
New ones just make a thunk noise.
The video clip is in Russian but listen to the difference
in axe sounds

https://twitter.com/officialrus1/status/1355440947488821250?s=20

NOTE: arrows bottom right - up for sound. down to leave site.

[dryheat]

Well, that was different. The old axes were too brittle? Hard to sharpen? Axes today are hardened in two phases. The edge is hard(but not too hard) and the rest is soft to absorb the impact.

https://www.bnctools.com/blogs/news/true-temper-hardening-and-tempering-axe-steel

You started it. People think that metal that was in a fire gets brittle. Not the case. It's like annealing. Heat takes the hardness out. Guns that were in fires are junk unless somebody knows how to restore them. I don't know that that's workable or worthwhile.

Just an aside; I've had dozens of junk gun barrels. Some of them ring like bells. I've made wind chimes(and I kind of hate wind chimes) and some just go clunk.

[lyman]

a good blacksmith would make an axe by forging one metal wrapped around a core,
the core would hold the edge,

[dogtag]

I have a really old wood chisel (James Cam , late 1600s) where the cutting edge
has been welded on. That tempered steel strip is 4" long by 1/8" wide.
The chisel itself is huge and is obviously Blacksmith made, and I don't mean crude.

[Vern Humphrey]

I have a really old wood chisel (James Cam , late 1600s) where the cutting edge
has been welded on. That tempered steel strip is 4" long by 1/8" wide.
The chisel itself is huge and is obviously Blacksmith made, and I don't mean crude.

Shovels used to be made that way. At Wolstenholme Town (first settlement after Jamestown) they found a skeleton with a gash in the head and a crescent of iron next to it. Everything found at Wolstenholme Town was too old for Americans to interpret, so they went to England to consult with archeologists there. The iron crescent was a spade -- originally made entirely of wood, with an iron tip.