These thoughts are based in 5 weeks working with bronze adzes and axes, I have learned a lot but feel there is still much more to learn and improve. At the moment we are all spending quite a bit of time fiddling with tools but as time goes on my time is spent experimenting and some of the tools that are sorted go several days with no attention. Here Trevor is sharpening and Richard is relashing with linen twine.
 

This head failed. It was made form a sycamore which was felled on an adjoining property and saved from the chipper. I used it green and found it to be quite unsatisfactory. There was no spring in the wood and as can be seen having removed the binding it developed a split. I would not rule sycamore out though. Maple is one of the species identified amongst original handles and I have now hafted one I had drying in a warm breezy environment for  2 weeks and it is performing well.

This shows how the end of the wood stops short of the cut away in the palstave, if it touches the head seems to bounce loose.

This is one adze I have with a very narrow profile, it is good for finishing but prone to “edge roll”when hitting hard knots.

 a few well aimed taps with a hammer puts it all back in line though.

Here is an index for all blog posts on the Dover boat project

bronze-age-woodworking-adzes-and-axes
more-bronze-age-woodworking
bronze-age-boat-building-pictures
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-2
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-3
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-4
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-5
bronze-age-woodworking-tools-early thoughts
building-bronze-age-dover-boat-part-6
building-bronze-age-dover-boat-part-7
boat-building-steaming-timbers
filming-with-time-team
more-bronze-age-boatbuilding.
casting-bronze-axes-and-adzes
more-bronze-age-boatbuilding.
20-hour-woodworking-marathon
woodworking-marathon-continued-just 18 hours to go.
dover-boat-launch-day-end-of-3-months work.
the boat-that-didnt-float.

Author Robin Wood

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Comments (4)

  1. Joel March 12, 2012

    Have you considered using sinew to bind the bronze heads to the handle? Or is there no evidence that sinew was ever used to do that job? Sinew is such a strong fibre and I would ahve thought it likely these people would have used it.

  2. Brian March 12, 2012

    These posts have been great Robin, thanks for taking the time to share them 🙂

Comments are closed.