Stone ax (stonemason)

Flat surface, cutting edge about 10 cm wide

Flattened stone surface

The stone ax , even surface , is a tool of the masons , to produce flat surfaces.

Structure, variants and function

Stone axes have a cutting width of up to approx. 100 mm, but usually approx. 40 to 60 mm. These stone axes used today mostly have a cutting edge made of soldered hard metal . With greater cutting width is also Flächbeil , surface or double-surface called. Most stonemasons use the term area. Very narrow surfaces with cutting widths of no more than about 30 mm are called pill by the Ulm minster builder Karl Friederich .

The surface has two ax-like cutting edges, sometimes also standing crosswise like a dexel , which are forged to different degrees depending on the hardness of the stone to be worked. The handle, mostly made of ash wood, is 30 to 40 centimeters long, the forged head weighs two to three kilograms. The surfaces are made of forged tool steel .

Stone axes are guided with both hands and used in the sandstone - and limestone processing according to the tips of a planarizing of the machined surface. The surfaces produced in this way are called "flattened". If the chisel chisels are still visible after processing with the surface, one speaks of “overfaced” surfaces. The surfaces or profiles made with pills , such as fillets, are “pilled”.

In contrast to the surfaces with a smooth edge, which are also called smooth surfaces, stone axes with serrated edges are called tooth surfaces . There are also surfaces with a smooth and a serrated cutting edge. The individual teeth of the tooth surfaces can be pointed or forged as short cutting edges with a width of a few millimeters.

Stone axes were the most important tools for finishing stone surfaces until the late Middle Ages , until they were increasingly replaced by the sharpening tool from around the 15th century .

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  Stone ax and iron , coat of arms of Poproč , Slovakia

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  Double plane and setting iron , coat of arms of Wieliczka , Poland

Similar tools

• Punch (tool)
• Pickling iron
• chisel

jobs

• Stonemason
• Stone sculptor

literature

• Reiner Flassig: Historical stone processing. In: Training center for the stonemasonry and sculptor's trade (ed.): Steinmetzpraxis: The manual for daily work with natural stone. 2nd, revised edition. Ebner Verlag, Ulm 1994, ISBN 3-87188-138-4 , p. 310 ff.
• Karl Friedrich: Stone processing in its development from the 11th to the 18th century . Filser, Augsburg 1932.
• Friedrich Kobler: Area (tool) . In: Otto Schmitt et al. (Hrsg.): Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte . Volume 9, 1992, columns 507-535.
• Peter Völkle: Work planning and stone processing in the Middle Ages . Ebner Verlag, Ulm 2016, ISBN 978-3-87188-258-6 .