My neighbor who is a retired archeologist payed these on me tonight. He found them on the site of a large forge furnace operation in our township that ran in the mid to late 1800’s. he couldn’t figure out what they were and took them to an old blacksmith across the county line. identified them to be axe head drifts. That furnace must have spit them out by the thousands. My neighbor said the furnace burn 20 cord a day. Can you imagine the wood cutting and deforestation for that?
Doesn't look like any drift I've ever seen or used. They would get stuck. A lot of axes in that time period were folded and welded from one piece of iron with steel forge welded at the cutting edge. Look more like hot cuts for cutting hot steel into smaller pieces. Many forges and smelters wouldn't burn the wood. There would be several charcoal kilns near by to convert the wood to charcoal. Charcoal will burn at a higher temp and more consistent than wood. At the same time if a steam boiler was used they often fueled them with green split wood. It would be split and stacked for a few days to dry.
That could be what they are. When I looked at them and was playing the guessing game, I thought they were wedges or something unfinished. This furnace also used the charcoal, but to create, of course took a lot of wood.
Would they happen to be the actual hardened steel bits for the cutting edge of axes? A spark test with a grinder could be done on one to determine the hardness of it.
Depending on the size, yes they could be the bit of steel for a cutting edge. It doesn't appear to be wrought or bloom iron. I'd recommend derusting and a micro- hardness test to discover harness of an artifact. A good University metallurgy department could use election microscope or other nondestructive method to measure element percentage. $8-12 for student at my college. Or free sometime if you visit with the kids running it.
