Cooper's Adze

 05 Apr 23:

Ping ponging around inside my brain housing group is an idea to get a 12 foot long cedar log, 2 foot diameter, and hack it into a canoe shape. Like this one...except with sides...and a stern...

So I've gathered a few tools, the latest of which is a cooper's adze. A cooper was a barrel maker, so this tool would make a good scoop to work on the interior shape after the bulk of the material has been removed.

This tool actually caught one of my son's eye, a query as to what this was. Medieval weapon perhaps? The tool is marked D.R. Barton Rochester, N.Y. 1832 and a number 1. D.R. Barton made tools until the late 1800s and this one is in decent shape, but the blade does need to be dressed. 

I wasn't sure what the blunt end was used for, so proceeded to the webernet to find out. Among other things, it is used to drive the hoops into place around the outside of the barrel staves and shape the ends of the stave faces. It was also used as a hammer to flatten metal fittings that held together hoops of wood or metal. We didn't know that early hoops were made of wood, pine hoops were a popular export from our area in Virginia.

Video: https://youtu.be/x-msgT71xek

We have no plans of going into barrel making.