Adze

thumb|Adze

An adze () or adz is an ancient and versatile cutting tool similar to an axe but with the cutting edge perpendicular to the handle rather than parallel. Adzes have been used since the Stone Age. They are used for smoothing or carving wood in hand woodworking, and as a hoe for agriculture and horticulture. Two basic forms of an adze are the hand adze (short hoe)—a short-handled tool swung with one hand—and the foot adze (hoe)—a long-handled tool capable of powerful swings using both hands, the cutting edge usually striking at foot or shin level. A similar tool is called a mattock, which differs by having two blades, one perpendicular to the handle and one parallel.

History

Africa

The adze is depicted in ancient Egyptian art from the Old Kingdom onward. Originally the adze blades were made of stone, but already in the Predynastic Period copper adzes had all but replaced those made of flint. Stone blades were fastened to the handle by tying and early bronze blades continued this simple construction. It was not until the later Bronze Age that the handle passes through an eye at the top of the blade. Examples of Egyptian adzes can be found in museums and on the Petrie Museum website.

A depiction of an adze was also used as a hieroglyph, representing the consonants stp, "chosen", and used as: ...Pharaoh XX, chosen of God/Goddess YY...

The ahnetjer (Manuel de Codage transliteration: aH-nTr) depicted as an adze-like instrument, was used in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, intended to convey power over their senses to statues and mummies. It was apparently the foreleg of a freshly sacrificed bull or cow with which the mouth was touched.

As Iron Age technology moved south into Africa with migrating ancient Egyptians, they carried their technology with them, including adzes. To this day, iron adzes are used all over rural Africa for various purposes—from digging pit latrines, and chopping firewood, to tilling crop fields—whether they are of maize (corn), coffee, tea, pyrethrum, beans, millet, yams, or a plethora of other cash and subsistence crops.

South Pacific

Prehistoric Māori adzes from New Zealand were for wood carving, typically made from pounamu sourced from the South Island. During the Māori Archaic period found on the North Island were commonly made from greywacke from Motutapu Island or basalt from Opito Bay in the Coromandel, similar to adzes constructed on other Pacific Islands. At the same time on Henderson Island, a small coral island in eastern Polynesia lacking any rock other than limestone, native populations may have fashioned giant clamshells into adzes.

Northwest Coastal America

thumb|Native Alaskan boat builder using an adze c.1910

American Northwest coast native peoples traditionally used adzes for both functional construction (from bowls to canoes) and art (from masks to totem poles). Northwest coast adzes take two forms: hafted and D-handle. The hafted form is similar in form to a European adze with the haft constructed from a natural crooked branch which approximately forms a 60% angle. The thin end is used as the handle and the thick end is flattened and notched such that an adze iron can be lashed to it. Modern hafts are sometimes constructed from a sawed blank with a dowel added for strength at the crook. The second form is the D-handle adze which is basically an adze iron with a directly attached handle. The D-handle, therefore, provides no mechanical leverage. Northwest coast adzes are often classified by size and iron shape vs. role. As with European adzes, iron shapes include straight, gutter and lipped. Where larger Northwest adzes are similar in size to their European counterparts, the smaller sizes are typically much lighter such that they can be used for the detailed smoothing, shaping and surface texturing required for figure carving. Final surfacing is sometimes performed with a crooked knife.

New Guinea and Melanesia

thumb|140px|right|Contemporary stone adzes from New Guinea

Ground stone adzes used to be produced by a variety of people in Western New Guinea (Indonesia), Papua New Guinea and some of the smaller Islands of Melanesia and Micronesia. The hardstone would have been ground on a riverine rock with the help of water until the desired shape was obtained. It was then fixed to a natural grown angled wood with resin and plant fibers. A variety of minerals were used. Imported steel axes or machetes have now entirely replaced these tools for decades in even the remotest parts of New Guinea. Indeed, even before the first foreign missionaries or colonial officials arrived in the New Guinea Highlands, inhabitants had already obtained steel tools through trade with their neighbors.

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px">

File:19th century knowledge woodworking adze and axe.jpg|19th century catalogue showing various adze and axe heads

File:Making paddle with adze, Tobi, Western Caroline Islands, Micronesia.jpg|Micronesian of Tobi, Palau, making a paddle for his wa with an adze

File:WLA brooklynmuseum Boat Building Scene 2.jpg|Egyptian boatbuilding relief, featuring a workman using an adze

File:Adzes, Marshall and Yap Islands - Pacific collection - Peabody Museum, Harvard University - DSC05732.JPG|Adzes, Marshall and Yap Islands – Pacific collection – Peabody Museum, Harvard University

File:19th century knowledge carpentry and woodworking japanese adze.jpg|Japanese adze

File:Rye Shipyard- the Construction of Motor Fishing Vessels, Rye, Sussex, England, UK, 1944 D22783.jpg|Rye Shipyard – the construction of motor fishing vessels, Rye, Sussex, England, UK, 1944

File:SainteMarieAmongTheHuronsAdze.jpg|A craftsman uses an adze to square beams, and to recreate 17th-century colonial life

File:PolynesianAdze.jpg|Polynesian adze (replica), bought 2019 in Yap

</gallery>

Modern adzes

Modern adzes are made from steel with wooden handles, and enjoy limited use: occasionally in semi-industrial areas, but particularly by "revivalists" such as those at the Colonial Williamsburg cultural center in Virginia, United States. However, the traditional adze has largely been replaced by the sawmill and the powered plane, at least in industrialised cultures. It remains in use for some specialist crafts, for example by coopers. Adzes are also in current use by artists such as Northwest Coast American and Canadian Indigenous sculptors doing totem pole carving, as well as masks and bowls.

Foot adze

thumb|A [[Halligan bar, showing the adze (left) and pickaxe heads on the end of the bar]]

"Adzes are used for removing heavy waste, leveling, shaping, or trimming the surfaces of timber" and boards. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards between his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind.

Foot adzes are most commonly known as shipbuilder's or carpenter's adzes. They range in size from 00 to 5 being with the cutting edge wide.