Hi,

The old man reports back that in his experience the hatchets were  
used to set ceramic insulators on phone pole cross arms. He is also  
quite sure that this was not the definitive use of the tool, but  
merely one adaptation in the geographic area in which he worked. This  
was apparently in the days when in certain rural areas bare copper  
wires were used to bring party line service to the farmers. The  
square hole in the head was to grasp and align the pegs on which the  
insulators were mounted, as well as for the lag screws that attached  
the crossarms to the pole. The back of the hatchet head was used as a  
hammer to drive the pegs into the crossarm, as well as any galvanized  
nails that would have been necessary for other types of wooden braces  
to which said insulators were also affixed. He owned that the hatchet  
bequeathed to me had been reground by him in accordance with  
instructions passed along by an old timer with whom he had worked  
when he was a line gang newbie, in the one-facet bevel style  
previously mentioned. Apparently some nameless, genuinely ancient  
galoot knew how to hew a log into a beam. Getting a crossarm to lay  
flat against a section of phone pole was not an altogether different  
operation, and building a pole shed was, in retrospect I guess,  
"child's play."  :-)

Whether or not such hewing conformed to established BSP practice was,  
of course, such an irrelevant idea that no one dared ask.  ;->

On another note he also mentioned that the hole in the head of the 3  
lb lineman's hammer is reputed to be the idea of yet another nameless  
lineman, whose suggestion was passed up the line to management and  
thence to the tool-ordering folk.

Does anybody work for such a responsive, can-do organization today?

Ma Bell gave out dull hatchets and big ass hammers, but boy, did she  
put holes in them when asked for!

Go figure,

JL

On Oct 10, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Trevor Robinson wrote:

> Hi, Gary and Others
> 	The funny thing about the Bell System hatchets is that they are  
> never sharp. Why not?
> 					Trevor

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