Unusual Goldblatt drywall hatchet

[catspa]

Anybody else ever buy a box of stuff and then not get around to sorting it for several months? Well I did, and just recently found this. Old drywall hatchet head, handle busted off long ago, no big deal, right?

Now I’ve seen Goldblatt drywall hatchets on the job before, they and Wal-board seem to be about similar. The modern ones are steel shank kind of like Estwings, the older ones are wood hafted like the Marshalltown design but nothing special, but the real old ones I believe are cast steel and not often seen any more.

This one has some features I’ve never seen. One is the “bullseye” face, always seen them milled or worn down smooth. Another is the downward cant of the blade. But what really knocked my socks off, when I punched the broken handle stub out of the eye, this thing has eye ridges! And not just at the sides like a True Temper, but fore and aft as well!

I was completely taken aback. I’ve never seen that before.

Other weird thing: the neck of the hammer head was all… crumpled, is the only way I can put it. Like it had broken off and been welded back on crooked. Now welding cast steel is weird in itself, very few welders will attempt it to repair even an expensive item, and fewer will pull it off in terms of restoring the original strength. But there was not a crack or bubble or pitting of any kind on this, like you’d expect from an amateur weld. Nada.

So I went to grinding and filing to smooth it out (forgetting to take a “before” picture, of course), and I made some progress on that. But I’m completely at a loss to figure out how it got that way.

I don’t know if I can post more than one pic per post, but here goes. Tell me if it sparks any memories or strange ideas.

Parker, scratching my head

[catspa]

Better pic of the eye ridges:

[GSPTOPDOG]

Better pic of the eye ridges:

Great find!!!