Main Discussion Area > Primitive Skills
Copper celt and adze - mound builder style
swamp monkey:
I have been making a series of copper tools in line with the mound builders of North America. I posted a thread on a woodpecker effigy celt or war club and the methods i used. Again I need to Thank Mr. Stover and his two metal shop students Chandler and Dillon for their help in making this happen.
Here are the tool specs:
Celt: 635.02 g, 17.7 cm long, 7.0 cm wide at blade, 4.8 cm wide at butt end, 0.8 cm thick in fact all of my blades were that thickness because I used a basswood board for making my models for casting. The handle is musclewood (AKA blue beech) and using it is an experiment. I have no idea how well it will work for taking an impact. The musclewood was roughly 10 years old but a small check started after I started to craft it into a celt handle. I added designs crafted out of copper by the Hopewell people of north America. I have no reason to thing those images decorated their celts. It just appealed to me. As thick and wide as the blade is I could bend it slightly immediately after casting. After some tool hardening on the anvil, it was stiff and un-bendable.
Adze: 214.2g, 8.4 cm long, 4.4 cm wide, 0.8 cm thick I crafted the handle from white ash wood and wrapped the grip in leather. The blade was bound in place with rawhide. The blade design was similar to s smaller adze blade. An interesting note about copper adzes. I don't know if they have asymmetrical cross sections like igneous blades. Copper tools, from what I have read, need to have a balanced bevel for cutting and especially for taking an impact. So that is how my adze is made. I have not seen a prehistoric copper adze face on to know how the blade was shaped.
I have copped a few limbs as test runs but have my eyes set on a bigger project.
Below are images I grabbed off the web for inspiration. Blade length and width were researched in Archeological journals.
swamp monkey:
Here are my blades.
BTW The axe looking item is intended to be a bannerstone. Jack Crafty turned me onto this artifact. I will post something on my replica when i have something to report. thanks for looking.
swamp monkey:
Moving things along. First I tool hardened the copper then I began to file it. The coppery color was underneath the grey patina. After filing I started sanding.
swamp monkey:
Now for the celt handle.
swamp monkey:
Here is the adze with handle. The rawhide was still wet when the picture was taken. I have seen reports of other replicas with leather used to bind the blade in place. If rawhide isn't working, then I will have a leather strip ready to go.
The last two images are misnamed celt when they are adze images. I noticed that after the post was up. Sorry about that.
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