So it has been a bit, and while I haven’t had a ton of time to work in the shop, I also haven’t had a ton of time to write, so it sort of works out. Just slowly.
The biggest thing I have worked on is the billhook, started earlier and finished up over the summer. It’s been a huge help for outside brush clearing etc.; good times.
The biggest part of the billhook, however, is the haft. By volume, at least. For this task I got a slab of ash cut into some 6’ long 2”x2” from Hearne Hardwoods (along with some really nice rosewood and other pretty bits for handles)1.
Now I have a big task ahead… it turns out 2”x2” was a bit much and I have a lot of hard wood to take down.
But first, I have to shape the top to fit into the attached eye socket of the bill.
Now grinding all that down would be possible, but ash is tough stuff so it would be a loooooooong process. Fortunately, we can rough that out using the pull saw.
Once roughed out, the grinding and final shaping begins. Conveniently once we can get the shaft into the eye of the blade we can learn where we need to trim down based on where the little black rub marks show up. Shape the shaft, hammer down the head, remove the head, grind down where there is interference, and repeat over and over.
After a good bit of tweaking, we have a functional end! Or at least most of one… that second strap needs a slot to fit in. (I didn’t get a picture, but you will see it at the end.)
The next part, that took a while, and was where I was really feeling the mistake of starting with a 2”x”2 shaft instead of even a 1.5”x2”. Needing to take this down to a roughly 1” oval cross section means a huge amount of work with a draw knife, plane and rasps. Not for the first time I wished I owned a band saw. Some touch up and work could be done with a flap disk on the angle grinder to really move some material, but mostly I spent around 6 hours slicing off wood shavings. On the plus side, it made for some nice rowing style work outs, and I got about two two copy paper boxes of ash wood shavings retained. Those shavings are well loved by the kids’ gerbils, and the less appealing ones make for great fire starting kindling. I mean, sure, in retrospect I would rather have started with a better sized shaft and gotten some hours of my life back, not to mention saved some fairly expensive wood, but eh, lemons to lemonade etc.
Although not strictly necessary, since I am going to be holding this in two hands and there is nearly zero chance of it slipping, I couldn’t resist leaving on a little bit of a baseball bat end cap. As pictured, this still isn’t quite finished, but very nearly so; mostly past this point I sanded down some spots and made it a little more even, a little more rounded, a little thinner here and there.
Next up, Tung oil town.
Man, ash is such pretty wood. Understated, sure, but damned if that doesn’t look nicer than a tool handle needs to.
After a few days’ oiling, the bill head itself can be added, and hey presto!
All in all I am very happy with how it turned out. The head holds together very well, something I was a little worried about given how much stress gets put on the welds at the eye. So far after a large amount of use, probably a little abusive when you get down to it, it has held up very well. The blade will go through about a 2” mulberry tree branch in one shot, and when it doesn’t the haft has a nice little flex to it so the shock of the sudden stop doesn’t bother you.
The main tricky bits of a tool like this are targeting and speed. Even though the blade is nearly ten inches long, putting the edge where you want it is a bit tricky when it is six feet away. Fortunately, this is another realm where learning to use medieval weapons has come in handy for me in day to day life. Tree branches don’t move around as much as human heads in helmets.
Speed is sort of an odd one, but the issue is that the weight is at the far end of the lever and is a fair bit of weight at that. Getting the blade up to speed takes a bit more muscle and proper form than would be the case if the shaft was even two feet shorter I suspect, and speed of course helps a great deal in delivering the blow. I don’t know exactly what the weight of the head is on this one, but I did decided that the other, larger bill head I have isn’t getting a long pole, but a 3’ or so ax sized handle. I don’t think I can move a bill with a roughly 5 lb head on a bigger pole.
So, I will end this part here with the finishing of a tool I am very happy with. Great for clearing the brush and vines that plague the yard here, not to mention chopping through branches of the trash mulberry I have already taken down and need to break down to fit in the fire pit. Those damned things seem made entirely of whippy bits to poke you in the eye before you can get within a few feet of a solid branch, and this big lad solves that problem nicely.
Thanks for reading, get outside and make something, and have a great weekend!
It made for a fun day out with my dad and middle daughter; there is even a miniature golf course right next door owned by the extended family. If you are in the Oxford, PA region it is worth a trip down to see. Even a seven year old can enjoy all the really cool woods and their showroom of fabulous things people have made with them.
That's a beautiful tool. Reading this makes me anticipate my autumn scything. There's a lot to cut this year, due especially to unusually extended summer weather, here in northern France. I'm holding off until the things that shouldn't be flowering stop and the pollinators lose interest.