The Maker

Yusuf ran his eye over the piece of hickory held in the jaws of the vice before him seeking imperfections. The plane in his hands would’ve shamed a razor with its edge. He made a few slow, smooth passes along the wood and looked critically at it again.

Master Marat had said many times, “Yusuf, it is an axe handle (or rake handle or some other tool) there is no need to make it perfect. It is going to get banged around and dropped and damaged. Don’t work so much at each one, they’re just going to get broken eventually.”

The boy would just smile his open, innocent smile and say, “But they aren’t yet, and it was you who told me when I started working here, ‘Any job worth doing, is worth doing right.’ Making handles is a job worth doing.”

The Master would walk away shaking his head. 

He loosened the vice and removed the handle. He slid his hand carefully along the shaft. Finding a few barely perceptible bumps, deftly working the plane while carefully shifting the wood in his other hand.

Turning, he placed the plane in its place on the shelf over the workbench. There was a strip of wood under one end keeping the blade from resting on the shelf which would dull it. All of Yusuf’s tools were protected like that. Tools which were used only rarely gleamed with a thin layer of oil to protect them from rusting.

Now, he took a freshly washed rag and dipped it into a small container of vegetable oil. Starting at the bottom of the handle, he worked the oil into the wood, slowly, methodically until he reached the place where the axe head would attach. Dipping the rag again into the oil, he started at the top and carefully continued oiling the handle to its base. After two more passes, Yusuf judged the wood had absorbed all the oil it would for now. 

Carrying the handle to Master Marat’s part of the workshop, he picked up the axe head the Master had completed earlier in the day. Before returning to his own work area he moved to the grinder and worked the treadle to bring the stone wheel up to speed. Moving with his usual care and dexterity, he worked some minor imperfections out of the edge of the blade. Once satisfied, he slowed the tempo of the treadle until the wheel stopped. He then took the axe head and handle back to his own part of the shop.

Yusuf placed the axe head on a piece of clean, soft leather on his bench. Taking down a small, square saw, he cut a slot lengthwise into the top of the handle. Next, he cut two evenly spaced slots across the short length creating a double-barred cross. 

He placed the butt of the handle on the floor, picked up the axe head and slid it over the crown of the handle. He thumped the handle gently on the piece of pine he kept nearby for just that purpose. Once the head was seated with perhaps a quarter-inch of handle sticking up above the head, he selected an oak shim, seated it and gently tapped it into place with a small wooden mallet. Using the square saw, he cut both the crown of the handle and shim off level with the top of the axe head.

In a drawer above his bench were a number of small brass shims. Selecting the four most promising, he compared them to the notches remaining in the crown of the handle. A few minutes work with a small file and they fit the notches exactly. Placing a thicker piece of flat brass across the tops of the shims, he used the mallet to tap them carefully into place. Finally, he filed the tops of the brass shims level with the axe head. Picking up a soft cloth, he wiped the finished axe carefully free of dust from the work he had done.

Replacing the cloth, Yusuf walked to the door, the axe still in his hand. He was still a youth, just thirteen summers, but years in the workshop had made him strong for his age and the axe sat easily in his hands. Night had fallen as he worked and looking east, he could see a twinkle of fires on the distant hills and knew they were the campfires of armies. The war was all the talk in the village, but Yusuf never bothered about talk like that. He preferred just to work and make himself useful. He knew that one day, the war might come here and he would need either to run away or try to defend the workshop. 

But that wasn’t right now, and as he turned from the distant fires thoughts of war slipped from his mind like a bead of mercury sliding off a steel ball. Placing the axe on a rack where its new owner would collect it the next day, he went to the rack of wood and selected a long, slender piece of ash. The springiness of it would make a good handle for a hoe. It would be less likely to break when thumped into the hard ground to remove the weeds in someone’s garden. Returning to his workshop, he picked up a spokeshave and set to work.

When I change a pace, I don’t mess around. As always would love your thoughts!

Cheers,