[TheForge] ...or we could talk about smithing...

[Gladish Family]

Has anyone out there heard of the Norton Tool Company?
Yesterday I was working with a young man who wanted to make a "viking"
hatchet for a school research project.
I hauled out a broad hatchet that I'd bought years ago for two bucks at a
sale to show him, because it had a welded eye and he could see what we were
going to do. Later I did a spark test on it, and the body of it is iron,
with a H.C. steel bit welded in. There's no trace of the weld- the only way
to see it might be to etch it.

The question is, how long ago did tool companies give up making these the
old way?
It has "THE NORTON TOOL COMPANY" stamped on the blade.
Andy G.


 People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of
the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without
wondering. -Saint Augustine (354-430)