Amongst my many petrol driven,hand,pneumatic and electrical tools my favourite tool is....a billhook. A once popular ubiquitous tool it has now pretty much fallen by the wayside except for those who coppice and hedge lay. The billhook comes in many regional forms all different than those of neighbouring counties and all with different edge configurations for their assigned tasks. Ebay is as usual a fertile ground for the buying of these often neglected tools and I have to temper my desire to own these simple tools with the knowledge that Mrs OTW will raise a sceptical eyebrow at my protestations as to the efficacy of a fourteen inch over a fifteen inch hook.....doesn't she understand? it's history in my hand...plus I get to chop things up...wonderful stuff.
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Hooked.
Amongst my many petrol driven,hand,pneumatic and electrical tools my favourite tool is....a billhook. A once popular ubiquitous tool it has now pretty much fallen by the wayside except for those who coppice and hedge lay. The billhook comes in many regional forms all different than those of neighbouring counties and all with different edge configurations for their assigned tasks. Ebay is as usual a fertile ground for the buying of these often neglected tools and I have to temper my desire to own these simple tools with the knowledge that Mrs OTW will raise a sceptical eyebrow at my protestations as to the efficacy of a fourteen inch over a fifteen inch hook.....doesn't she understand? it's history in my hand...plus I get to chop things up...wonderful stuff.
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5 comments:
Looks like something that work great in a slasher film..eeeerm home defense
I seem to have seen one of them somewhere before!
A'right, Thud
A deadbeat from the days of West PArk and psychotic De La Salle catholic brothers ,gawd bless 'em. Thanks for your comment about my raving ,i'm just working through yours, at the moment. Let me know your secret identity i'll keep it secret, promise.
See ya 'R' kid
Tim
Looks nasty in the extreme.
Excellent post Thud. Billhooks are really useful and a lot safer than power tools. It's unfortunate that the Warwickshire pattern isn't shown in the picture as it's a good general purpose pattern with a straight edge (for splitting and chopping against a firm surface) opposite the curved edge. Changing topic slightly, I'm looking out for a hand-forged froe on Ebay.
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