This is a New Haven Edge Tool Co Cleaver, which I bought from Roninsgrips after he refinished it and fixed it up a bit. It's almost 22 inches in length and weighs a little over 3 pounds, the blade itself is about 10 inches long. When Ronin got a hold of it, the handle was cracked so they used some special cyanoacrylate glue to stabilize it, as well as using some reinforced glass epoxy to seal the front of the handle.
The blade of this cleaver is secured by using a rat tail tang which spreads through the whole handle and is then peened over to secure it firmly. Once the cracks in the handle had been repaired, it was then sanded down with various grits of sand paper and had four coats of Boiled Linseed Oil and turpentine applied once that was all done.
The blade thankfully was in good condition however, and didn't require too much work to touch up. It was sanded to help shape it a bit, abrasive blasted, and then had an acid etching job done using a mixture of apple cider vinegar and phosphoric acid, which gave the blade the dark grey color. He then applied a thick coat of oil afterwards to help prevent it from rusting until it found it's way to me. He also was cool enough to make me an edge guard for it that's custom made to fit, with the material known as Kydex which is a thermoplastic used often to make firearm holsters and knife sheathes.
This cleaver is estimated to be around 100-150 years old according to some research done. New Haven Edge Tool Company's catalog from 1911 listed it discontinued, so it's pretty likely that it's older than 100 years which I find absolutely fascinating. The history in this piece is something that will always intrigue me, knowing that it's far older than even my grandfather and has been in quite a few peoples hands over the past century or more.
I grabbed this cleaver mainly for a wall decoration/conversation piece, I feel that it really has some character and history to it which I dig. I'm planning on building a hanger for it to mount it on the wall, though I guess if I ever need to cut some meat up I can throw some cooking oil on there and go to town ;)
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