19thcNow for something completely different... For the past two hundred years, right up to end of the days of "wooden ships and iron men", fire aboard ship was a dreaded occurrence.
Space on a wooden warship being at a premium, many artifacts of everyday life were downsized to fit the new reality. Swords became cutlasses, pikes became boarding pikes and axes became ... these.
First and foremost a tool; a firefighting tool, the boarding axe was invaluable in the heat of battle as well. Grappling lines could be chopped loose, downed spars and lines cut away and, if boarding rather than being boarded, hatches and bulkheads could be smashed in and, if it came to it, the axe was a fearsome weapon.
This oft-overlooked piece of our material heritage lives on in our world as the modern fire axe.
This is a design cobbled together from several sources. It is most like the boarding axes the USN issued from the war of 1812 up until the War of Secession.
Essentially an over-sized tomahawk, this axe has a turned hickory handle, 18" long with a ball at the end. The head, reinforced at the eye by steel langets, has an axe edge and a pick head opposite. Forged of high-carbon steel is tempered such that the pick point and cutting edge retain full harness while the body, especially around the eye, is annealed.
Includes a cowhide sheath.
$140 shipping included in US
To order e-mail me
dbrock76@yahoo.com
