Too crude to be a Machete ?

[fernando]

I can see what you mean, Jim. However i doubt that this thing once had a haft. The handle has an elliptical cross section, the usual shape of a grip, and it doesn't look like it has been previously round, like for a socket. Nor could its diameter fit one ... i would say.

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[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by fernando

I can see what you mean, Jim. However i doubt that this thing once had a haft. The handle has an elliptical cross section, the usual shape of a grip, and it doesn't look like it has been previously round, like for a socket. Nor could its diameter fit one ... i would say.

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I had wondered if it had 7-15cm of an extension, but probably not.

Was this item buried at one time?

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

... I had wondered if it had 7-15cm of an extension, but probably not...

Some kind of ... not impossible. But i guess we will never know.

Originally Posted by Interested Party

... this item buried at one time? ...

That also remains a mistery. I bought it in the local street fair several years ago. I didn't even recall that it was me who took it for rust cleaning, but today i found old pictures of it in my files. Perhaps such cleaning wasn't a good idea; the person who did it uses a bench polisher. But i reckon the rust cover was critical. I wonder that, instead of having been buried, it was only exposed to wheather for a rather long period. Could you judge on that looking at such pictures ?


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[fernando]

Unless the blade was originally designed (forged) with its own tang, to support a 'conventional' handle; a tang that might have accidently broken, and only then a piece of pipe was used to regain its handling ability.
Just a fantasy, of course .

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by fernando

Some But i reckon the rust cover was critical. I wonder that, instead of having been buried, it was only exposed to weather for a rather long period. Could you judge on that looking at such pictures ?

I went to my scrap pile and stared at it and thought about your question. I looked at mainly wrought iron items 100-150 years old. I cannot tell from pictures or in person what items with such a long life experienced. I hypothesize that the deep pits are contact with earth. Such pits and very thick layers of corrosion have been characteristic on items I have unearthed over the years, but in a wet or salty climate I do not know what the ageing of a blade hung but exposed to some elements would look like. Such as a tool hung in a barn that lost its roof and was left to rot. The broken tang or blade theory sounds like very probable.

[fernando]

All duly noted, thank you.

[Jim McDougall]

I see what you mean, and I hadnt noticed the elliptical shape. As a rather crudely formed blacksmith work, as you note the flatter shape rather than round would seem more suited as a 'handle'. Certainly is a conundrum, and an intriguing one.