Iron Adze Forged with an Eye and a Steeled Edge

An adze is an axe turned crosswise: its edge lies across the handle, so it shaves and levels timber with a swinging chop. A hand adze is swung with one hand; the long foot adze of shipwrights with two. Forge it like an axe, punch and drift an eye, weld steel into the edge, draw the blade out curved, harden and handle it. The picture: shipwright Herbert Page trimming a timber with an adze at Rye shipyard, Sussex, 1944 (Imperial War Museum).