Axe Pattern Identification Key: Matching a Bare Head to Its Named Pattern
Work the head backwards: bit count first, then poll type, then whether the bevel is symmetrical, then the eye. Those four calls narrow almost any American head to two or three patterns, and the silhouette of the bit decides between them. The pattern name is what unlocks the right handle length, the right eye size and the right hang.
By the The Tool Wise Editorial Team
Count the bits. Then look at the poll. Then check whether the bevel is the same on both faces. Those three questions dispose of about eighty percent of American heads before you have looked at the bit shape at all.
One bit with a flat poll and symmetrical bevels puts you in the big felling family - Michigan, Jersey, Dayton, Connecticut, Kentucky, Rockaway - and the silhouette separates them. Two bits means cruiser or a full-size western double. A single bevel with a flat back means it is a hewing tool and not a chopper. A poll shaped like a sledge means splitting maul. A poll shaped like a pick or a spike means it is a fire or rescue tool.
Pattern names matter because they were specifications. Between roughly 1900 and 1960 the Kelly, Collins, Plumb and True Temper catalogues used a pattern name to describe an exact bit profile, poll type and eye dimension, and none of it was digitised. What is left is scattered across forum threads and auction photographs. This page is the register put back in one place.
The branching key: four questions in order
Work top to bottom and do not skip. Each step assumes you answered the one above it.
Step Question Yes No 1 Are there two cutting edges? Cruiser if under 3.25 lb and the eye is 2 x 5/8; western or swamping double bit if 3 lb and up Go to step 2 2 Is one bevel flat, with all the grind on one face only? Hewing tool: broad axe if the bit is 8 in or wider, hewing hatchet if narrower Go to step 3 3 What is the poll? Sledge-shaped and heavy: splitting maul. Pick or grub hoe: Pulaski or mattock. Spike: fire axe. Milled with a nail slot in the bit: shingling hatchet Flat poll, go to step 4 4 Does the head weigh over 3 lb? Full-size felling family - identify by silhouette in the register below Under 2.5 lb with a flared fan bit and no real poll: Hudson Bay. Under 2.5 lb with a scaled-down full pattern: boy's axe. Under 1.5 lb: hatchet 5 Are there lugs - ears extending down each side of the eye onto the handle? Jersey, or a lugged variant of another pattern; check the top line next Michigan, Dayton, Connecticut, Kentucky, Rockaway or Puget Sound - use the bit silhouette 6 Is the top line of the head straight, or does it sweep? Sweeping toe with a straight-ish top: Dayton. Tall narrow canted bit: Rockaway Fully convex both edges: Michigan. Mirror-symmetrical top and bottom: Connecticut. Long, narrow, near-parallel with a thin poll: Kentucky Run the six steps in order and write down the answer at each one. If you land on two candidates, the eye dimensions and head weight in the register below will usually split them. The register: 14 patterns
Weights are head-only. Eye dimensions are nominal, measured at the top of the eye, and vary by maker - treat them as a bracket rather than a target.
Pattern Bit silhouette Poll Bits Eye, L x W (in) Weight (lb) Handle (in) Origin Primary task Michigan Convex top and bottom, rounded shoulders, generous belly to the cheeks Flat, unhardened 1 2-1/8 to 2-1/4 x 5/8 to 3/4 3.0 - 4.5 32 - 36 curved Great Lakes, then everywhere General felling and bucking - the American default Jersey Michigan-like bit with a slightly straighter top and pronounced lugs at the eye Flat 1 2-1/4 x 3/4 plus lug bearing 3.5 - 4.0 32 - 36 curved New Jersey and the eastern states Felling; the lugs spread load and resist head loosening Dayton Straighter top line with a distinctly swept toe, flatter cheeks, slimmer poll Flat, often thin 1 2-1/8 x 5/8 to 11/16 3.0 - 4.0 32 - 36 curved Ohio Valley General work; popular where lighter, faster heads were preferred Connecticut Mirror-symmetrical top and bottom lines, square shoulders, flat cheeks Flat 1 2-1/8 x 5/8 3.0 - 4.0 32 - 36 curved New England Farm and general chopping Kentucky Long and narrow, top and bottom close to parallel, deep bit, very thin poll Flat and thin 1 2-1/8 x 5/8 3.0 - 4.0 34 - 36 curved Appalachian Felling dense hardwood - the depth of bit is for penetration Rockaway Tall, narrow, canted bit with a strong sweep; heavier poll than most Flat, thick 1 2-1/4 x 11/16 3.5 - 4.0 32 - 36 curved New Jersey and New York Felling and rough squaring Puget Sound falling Very long thin bit, 5.5 to 6 in, minimal poll, slab-sided cheeks Almost none 1 2-1/4 x 5/8 4.0 - 5.5 36 - 40 curved Pacific Northwest Falling large softwood - a specialist head, hopeless at splitting Hudson Bay Flared fan-shaped bit, tapered ears wrapping the eye, no meaningful poll Thin, not for striking 1 1-3/4 x 9/16, thin walls 1.5 - 2.25 19 - 24 straight Fur trade, Canada Camp, packing and light limbing Boy's axe (3/4 axe) Any full pattern reproduced at roughly three-quarter scale Flat 1 1-7/8 x 9/16 2.0 - 2.5 26 - 28 curved Everywhere Limbing, brushing, trail work, everything in tight cover Cruiser (double bit) Two matched bits, compact, narrow across the eye None - two edges 2 2 x 5/8, straight-through 2.5 - 3.25 26 - 28 straight Timber cruising, west and north One bit kept keen for blazing, one for grubby cuts Western / swamping double bit Two matched full-size bits, often one thinned for chopping and one thicker None 2 2-1/8 x 5/8, straight-through 3.0 - 4.0 36 straight Western logging camps Clearing, swamping and felling on a crew Splitting maul Short wedge bit with heavily flared cheeks, sledge face opposite Full sledge, hardened 1 2-1/2 to 2-3/4 x 3/4 to 7/8 6.0 - 8.0 32 - 36 straight Everywhere Splitting oversized and knotty rounds; driving steel wedges American broad axe Wide bit 8 to 14 in, flat on one face, all bevel on the other Flat, sometimes with a lug 1 2-1/2 x 3/4, often near-round 4.0 - 7.0 18 - 28 straight and cranked Eastern timber framing Hewing round logs to square beams along a chalked line Pulaski Axe bit one end, narrow grub hoe or adze blade the other, in line Adze blade 1 plus adze 2-1/2 x 3/4, tapered slip fit 3.5 - 5.5 36 straight US Forest Service, from 1913 Cutting and scraping fire line; trail construction Match your head down the silhouette and poll columns, then confirm with weight and eye size. Once you have the pattern name you have the handle length, the eye dimension and the correct hang - which is the whole reason the name is worth chasing. Two patterns not in the register but worth recognising by sight. The fireman's pick-head axe carries a spike opposite the bit and almost always started life painted red. The shingling or roofer's hatchet has a milled hammer poll and a nail-pulling slot cut into the bit itself, and it is worthless as a chopper - people mistake them for damaged hatchets and pass on good tools.
Lugs are the one feature that names a pattern outright
If your head has ears - flat tabs running down either side of the eye and onto where the handle sits - you are almost certainly holding a Jersey or a lugged variant. Nothing else in common American production carries them so prominently.
They exist for a reason that still matters when you rehang. The lugs give the handle two extra inches of bearing surface below the eye, which spreads the shock of a stroke over a longer length of wood and dramatically slows the rate at which the head works loose. It also means the handle needs a properly shaped shoulder to sit against them. A generic handle dropped into a Jersey without shaping leaves an air gap under the lugs and the whole benefit evaporates.
Older lugged heads sometimes have one lug worn or broken away. Do not condemn the head for it. Check the eye for cracks radiating from the lug root, and if the eye is sound the head is serviceable, just less forgiving of a sloppy hang.
Symmetry of bevel separates a chopper from a hewer
Lay a straightedge flat against each face of the bit. If it beds down on one side and rides up on the other, the head is single-bevelled and it was made to hew, not to chop.
Broad axes and hewing hatchets are ground this way because the flat face is a reference surface. It slides along the timber and produces the finished face while the bevel lifts the chip away. Chopping with one is possible and unpleasant - the head steers hard to one side.
Handedness follows from this. A broad axe ground flat on its left face as you hold it bit-forward is a left-handed tool, and no amount of regrinding fixes it cheaply because the eye is usually cranked to match. Check which way the eye offsets before you buy. Plenty of good broad axes sell cheap because nobody in the room could work out why they felt wrong.
Eye taper tells you which direction the handle goes in
Standard axe eyes taper from a larger top opening to a smaller bottom one, so the handle is driven in from the bottom, seated up, and wedged from the top. That is nearly everything on this page.
Double bit eyes do not taper. They are parallel-sided and roughly symmetrical, and the handle is driven through and wedged in the middle of the eye. Fitting one like a single bit produces a head that walks steadily down the haft.
Pulaskis and pick mattocks reverse the whole arrangement. The eye tapers the other way, the handle drops in from the top, and the head seats by friction and by the swing itself - there is no wedge at all. If you find a wedge hammered into a Pulaski, someone did not know what they had.
Slip fits are also the reason a mattock handle looks like a plain parallel bar with no swell. It has to pass through the eye.
What forty years of filing hides
A heavily used head is a different silhouette from a new one, and this is where identification goes wrong most often. Decades of filing shortens the bit, which pulls the toe and heel inward and makes a Michigan look narrower and a Dayton look like a Connecticut.
The features that survive wear are the ones to trust: the eye dimensions, the poll thickness, the presence or absence of lugs, and the line of the top of the head where it leaves the eye. Those do not change. Bit width and overall outline do.
Weight is also unreliable on a worn head. A head stamped as a 3-1/2 that weighs 3.0 lb has lost half a pound of steel, which means both a shorter bit and a thinner section behind the edge. It will run hot when you file it and it will chip more readily in frozen wood. Identify it, hang it, use it gently, and do not pay collector money for it.
When the pattern honestly cannot be called
Some heads will not resolve, and saying so is more useful than guessing. Hardware-store house brands from the 1950s onward blurred the patterns deliberately, producing a generic convex head that is Michigan-ish without being a Michigan. Imported heads from the same era copied silhouettes without copying eye dimensions.
In that case, stop chasing the name and record the four numbers that decide what happens next: eye length, eye width, poll thickness and head weight. Those are what you need to buy a handle and hang it correctly, and the pattern name was only ever a shorthand for them.
Photograph the head against a rule, both faces and both ends, before you clean it. Faint stamps are often visible in raking light on a rusted surface and invisible after a wire wheel has been near them. More maker's marks have been destroyed by enthusiastic cleaning than by rust.
- Photograph in raking light before any cleaning, with a rule in frame
- Record eye length and width at the top of the eye, in two directions
- Record poll thickness front to back, and note whether it is hardened
- Weigh the head on a kitchen scale and note it to the nearest tenth of a pound
- Note bevel symmetry with a straightedge, and eye taper direction
Where the pattern name earns its keep
Once you have the name, the Hang Rating becomes a meaningful thing to apply. The rating grades head weight, balance point, hang angle and handle geometry against what the pattern was built to do - so a Puget Sound head that balances like a splitter is scored harshly, while the same balance on a maul is exactly right.
It also settles arguments about value. A worn generic head with no lugs and a blurred silhouette is a user. A crisp Jersey with intact lugs, a legible stamp and full bit length is an archive piece, and the gap between the two is enormous.
Mostly, though, it tells you what handle to buy. That is the practical end of this whole exercise: pattern gives you length, eye size and grip shape, and those three decide whether the tool you rehang tonight is still tight next winter.