My grandson was fooling around with the magnet I use for cleaning up job sites when he unearthed this hatchet head.

I’m pretty sure it’s an old roofing hatchet or drywall hatchet but I figured I’d run it by the experts here. I know some of you guys are collectors.

Can anybody confirm my ID and possibly tell me a maker and/or age? There are no ID marks on it that I can see.

It was in pretty rough shape when he found it.



I let it soak in some Evapo-Rust for several days and it cleaned up pretty nice. It’s badly pitted but the grandson doesn’t care, he thinks it’s really cool.





I’m going to put an edge on it, paint the head and fit a handle to it. Then I’m going to give it to him so he can go out and destroy things just like I did when I was an eight year-old kid.

yes a roofing hatchet

That's pretty cool. Your grandson will treasure that forever!

Give.a.kid a hatchet, them tell him not to go out and chop anything. Patrick McManus

Cool

The small holes are for an adjustable gauge pin for quickly setting the exposure of the shingles. Roofing hatchets like that one, have a longer, more narrow head, than a drywall hatchet.

Keith

Nice find. Put a handle on that thing and go start a campfire for him.

Thanks Keith, I was hoping you'd chime in. After doing some research I think it is an older style Plumb brand roofing hatchet.

I thought those were for lathe.
I have one with long handle I used to tack
top wall sheetrock. It is a good sharp tool.
And another shorty.

How does this exposure gauge work?
Most wood shingle jobs I did were 10" expose.

Good one Lobo.

Old tools are just cool.

Awesome idea

Great minds think alike my friend.

I think the scale is to get around
window and door openings with wood lathe.
Much like you use a brick scale
to do same.

The farthest hole from the face of the hammer is 5.5 inches and the holes are spaced in 1/2" increments.

It's been a while since I did a shake roof job but your exposure seems like a lot. We were using about a 5" exposure IIRC, tighter on lower sloped roofs.

I've done around 30 blue label split shake roofs
in log house restoration. All were 10".
Sawn shingles with less expose were later. (after sawmills more common)
Your hatchet probably for those if that is the scale purpose.
But then I'm too young to have seen the 11 1/2" 2x12s.


The Elders knew all this.
But we lost all that to techies.

Lucky if you get 11 3/8" out of them now.