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Some call it a pick axe, some a pick mattock, and some a cutter mattock. There are some differences, but all come with a pick and an adzs, or an axe and an adze, or just a pointed end and a blunt end.
This is one of the most useful hand tools for working with hard or rocky soils, thin concrete, or even ice dams in northern climates. It can help you lever out stones and pavers, and remove brush, stumps, and roots. If it requires grubbing in the dirt, this tool will be your friend. It's especially good for the initial pass over sod where you want to place a garden, or a raised bed. I've had 2 or 3 of these things since I was a teenager (back in the Paleozoic), and one of my present ones came from my grandfather.
No question, grubbing is grunt work, but good technique can make it easier. This is great for small jobs; anything larger than a few square feet, and you might want to hire some heavy equipment!
We always added to our tool collection whenever we could. When we came across something at a great deal, we got it even if we thought we may never need it. It sure was nice to already have a pick axe that one time we needed it (so far).
One of the best multi purpose tools ever invented was the Polanski. Mostly used in woodland firefighting, marrying an ax to an adz means you only need one tool, especially when grubbing out stumps.
Both tools, ax and adz are invaluable, in one tool, you have a workshop! Cut and limb a tree, use the adz to square the log, use the adz to dig a hole for the foundation, use the ax to chop firewood, outside of a hammer and shovel, you got enough to build a cabin or shelter.
One of those tools you can depend on in any weather or situation.
Both tools, ax and adz are invaluable, in one tool, you have a workshop! Cut and limb a tree, use the adz to square the log, use the adz to dig a hole for the foundation, use the ax to chop firewood, outside of a hammer and shovel, you got enough to build a cabin or shelter.
I agree, but OMG, I'd have to be a much younger man to use just that one tool to build a cabin!
Wouldn't be my first choice to limit myself to one tool for that kind of job either, but when on an extended trip in the back country, especially when its cold, I can use my Polanski to build one hell of a warm shelter
I've used it to lever rocks out of the way, dig out crud to make a level place to sleep, cut saplings to make frames, and cut stuff to cover, its better than just an ax or saw.
I used one a lot on the fire lines, they become that piece of kit you just always depend on and reach for first.
That said, a chainsaw is a lot faster and easier.... at least when they run
One of the best multi purpose tools ever invented was the Polanski. Mostly used in woodland firefighting, marrying an ax to an adz means you only need one tool, especially when grubbing out stumps.
Both tools, ax and adz are invaluable, in one tool, you have a workshop! Cut and limb a tree, use the adz to square the log, use the adz to dig a hole for the foundation, use the ax to chop firewood, outside of a hammer and shovel, you got enough to build a cabin or shelter.
One of those tools you can depend on in any weather or situation.
Good call Nor'eastah!
It's called a Pulaski, named after firefighter Ed Pulaski, who fought the Great Burn fire in 1910. Pulaski saved 40 members of his 45 man crew by hiding in a cave. Great hero.
The Pulaski is a great tool. But one important thing needs to be noted: the axe blade of a Pulaski is generally sharpened with a thicker, more rounded profile than you'd use for an axe used strictly for felling. The thinner profile needed in a felling axe blade will chip too easily and frequently in the rough sort of work a Pulaski is used for (cutting roots and small trees and limbs and such while fighting wild fires). So yes a Pulaski axe can be used to fell trees but it won't be as efficient as a dedicated felling axe properly shaped for the job, unless you thin the Pulaski blade making it less useful for its normal purpose.
The Pulaski is a great tool. But one important thing needs to be noted: the axe blade of a Pulaski is generally sharpened with a thicker, more rounded profile than you'd use for an axe used strictly for felling. The thinner profile needed in a felling axe blade will chip too easily and frequently in the rough sort of work a Pulaski is used for (cutting roots and small trees and limbs and such while fighting wild fires). So yes a Pulaski axe can be used to fell trees but it won't be as efficient as a dedicated felling axe properly shaped for the job, unless you thin the Pulaski blade making it less useful for its normal purpose.
Correct. Multi purpose tools don't perform specific tasks as well as tools designed for one purpose only. Cutting angles, rake angles, width of blade all determine how a tool will work for any purpose. A tool like a Pulaski ( sorry, not an English major), can do a wider range of jobs good enough.
I make axes as well as a lot of other tools that are purpose specific. A Broadax for instance will fell a tree, but because of the wide blade, the impact is diffused so the cuts aren't as deep, but that blade design is great for shaping timbers. Felling axes as we know them today, with a slightly convex 6 inch cutting edge, and teardrop shaped eye and deerfoot handle, really didn't appear until the late 1800s and were a product of the industrialized timber industry. The famous double bitted ax also came out during this period.
The teardrop shaped eye stopped the head from twisting on impact, the deerfoot handle was ergonomically shaped to increase the speed and power of the strike. The short, slightly convex curve of the blade edge maximizes the impact in a small area for a deeper cut.
The splitting maul uses the speed and power of the strike, but the heavy head and angle put all that impact into forcing the layers of wood apart to split blocks easier.
A small head extended to a sharp point or spike on the bottom of the blade it becomes a bearded ax the Vikings used to overrun lands from the middle east to Russia, North Africa across the North Atlantic to North America 500 years before Columbus.
Widen out that same spike, and you have a goose-wing ax for squaring beams and building homes or castles.
Axes have always been one tool we've found invaluable since a caveman lashed a sharp rock to a stick, and walloped his neighbor or a saber toothed cat over the head.
It's amazing to me that no matter how advanced we become, how we can manipulate even atoms to do our work, that we still need basic tools that our earliest ancestors invented, hammer, ax, knife, are still basic tools that we need and use today.
Tools like the ax, with minimal changes, can do a myriad of jobs, but are still basically a sharp piece of mineral, ( iron and carbon to make steel instead of a chunk of flint), tied to a stick, ( wood, laminate, fiberglass, high impact plastic, etc.). Its still the same tool.
It's an endlessly adaptable tool for war, for peace, for survival, adding another blade, it becomes a mattock or adze, add a hardened backface, you have a sledge or hammer, add a spike, you have a weapon still used today by the modern military as a weapon and for breeching into dangerous places.
An ax in whatever shape or form, is still a marvel to me, and will always be part of my kit even though there are power tools that are faster and need less effort to work, an ax doesn't need fuel, works rain or shine, cold or hot, and just does the job.
Probably my favorite tool of all time.
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