Ashmaul Hand Forged High Carbon Steel Polehammer | 52 Inch Overall with a 9 Inch Head | Reenactment Display Gift | RK-1358

A polehammer puts three tools on one head. This one carries a square hammer face on the front, a curved beak on the back and a long tapering spike standing up in line with the haft, all forged from 1095 high carbon steel and mounted on a pale American ash stave with long steel langets riveted down each side. The reason this shape exists is armour. By the fifteenth century a good plate harness had made the cutting edge close to useless, and the answer was not a bigger axe but a hammer, because plate transmits shock even when it refuses to be cut.

Forged, heat treated and finished in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee, hardened and drawn to 54 to 58 HRC and polished bright. It ships with the fitted leather head cover shown, free anywhere in the United States, and it can be engraved with Elder Futhark runes or a Viking pattern before it leaves the bench.

Specifications

Three faces on one head

The hammer face is the primary tool and it is deliberately small. A broad face spreads its load and rings off a curved breastplate. A one and a quarter inch square with a slight crown to it concentrates everything into a patch the size of a thumbnail and drives the plate inward. Some period examples carry small pyramids on the face to bite further. Ours is left smooth so it can be used against display armour without marking it permanently.

The beak on the back is a pick, and its curve is not decorative. A straight spike that punches into plate is very hard to get out again, because the metal closes behind it. A curved beak enters and then levers on its own arc as the haft comes back, which frees it. The top spike turns the whole thing into a short spear so that a man with a polehammer in a press of bodies is not helpless at distance. Between the three, the head has an answer for reach, for shock and for penetration, which is why the polehammer and the poleaxe together dominated foot combat for a century.

Why 1095 high carbon steel and not stainless

Every plain steel piece in this group is forged from 1095, a simple high carbon steel with roughly one percent carbon and very little else in it. That plainness is the point. A steel with nothing but iron and carbon to argue about moves predictably under the hammer, takes a clean quench, and comes back to a hardness a smith can actually hold to. These are hardened and drawn to 54 to 58 HRC, which is deliberately a touch softer than a kitchen knife. A head that has to survive impact wants to bend and rebound rather than chip, and 1095 in that range absorbs a bad hit instead of losing a piece of itself.

Stainless alloys buy their rust resistance with chromium, and above about thirteen percent that chromium ties up carbon in carbides that make the steel harder to forge and more brittle at the edge. On a small folding knife that trade is fine. On a head that lands with the weight of a haft behind it, it is not. The cost of choosing 1095 is that it will rust if you leave it wet. Wipe it, oil it, and it will outlast you. There is more on that trade in our guide to Damascus versus stainless.

The ash haft

The haft is American ash, the same timber that goes into tool handles and baseball bats, and it is here for one reason. Ash has long straight fibres that run the length of the stave, which means it flexes under a shock load and returns instead of snapping across the grain. That flex is what keeps a heavy head from beating your hands. It is turned, sanded and finished with oil rather than lacquer, so the grain stays open and the surface grips a dry hand instead of sliding.

Oil finishes want feeding. Once or twice a year, wipe on a thin coat of boiled linseed or a hardwood handle oil, let it soak for twenty minutes and wipe the surplus off. Do not leave it standing in a damp corner or propped against a masonry wall, because wood pulls moisture out of stone and the fit at the head will loosen. Our guide to wooden handle care covers the routine.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it.

Engraving is cut by hand after the piece is finished and before final oiling, so keep the line short and let it sit where the eye already goes. Names, dates, a line of a poem, a maker mark, a unit or a crew number all work. If you are unsure where a line should sit, send us the text and we will suggest a placement before we cut. Full details and examples are on the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Carbon steel rusts. That is the only demanding thing about owning it. Wipe the steel down after handling, because fingerprints are salt and moisture and they will etch a bright surface in a week if you let them sit. A thin film of mineral oil, gun oil or paste wax on the metal is enough to keep it stable indoors. If the piece lives on a wall in a room that swings between damp and dry, check it every few months and re oil. Left alone in a garage or a basement it will spot, and once it spots the mark is permanent even after the rust is removed.

The edge is finished sharp from the forge and does not need attention until it stops biting. When it does, a coarse then fine whetstone, kept wet, held at the angle the bevel already carries, will bring it back in a few minutes. Do not take a powered grinder to it. Our guides cover steel care and sharpening with a whetstone in more detail.

Forged in Memphis

This is made in our shop in Memphis, Tennessee. Nothing in this listing is drop shipped from an importer catalogue and nothing is bought in finished and re labelled. The steel is cut, heated, drawn and shaped here, the heat treat is done here, and the fitting and finishing are done here by the same small crew. That is also why the lead time is honest rather than instant. Pieces in stock ship within two to three business days. If yours has to be made, or if you have asked for engraving, allow two to three weeks before it leaves the shop. We will tell you which it is when you order rather than after. Shipping inside the United States is free.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand forged. It is not machine made, not cast and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page. The grain of the wood, the tone the steel takes from the fire and the oil, the exact run of a pattern, the precise curve of a profile, all of it shifts a little from one piece to the next because each one is worked by hand from natural materials. Two hafts cut from the same board will not read the same. Two etched blades from the same billet will not carry the same swirl.

What does not change is the specification. Dimensions, steel, hardness, fittings and build are the same every time. The character is the part that is yours alone, and it is the reason to buy something forged rather than something stamped.

Frequently asked questions

Is the beak and spike sharpened?

Both are brought to a functional point rather than a razor edge, which is correct for the type. A polehammer punctures by mass and geometry, not by keenness, and a fine edge on a spike would simply roll on the first impact.

What are the langets for?

The steel straps running down the haft from the head. They stop an opposing blade from cutting through the wood at the weakest point, and they hold the head square on the stave so it cannot rotate or work loose in use.

Can I have runes engraved on it?

Yes. Use the rune converter on this page for Elder Futhark or choose your own Viking pattern in the engraving option. On a polehammer the flat cheeks of the head and the langets both take a line of runes well.

Will mine look like the photograph?

The steel, the head geometry and the length will match. The ash grain will not, because each haft is turned from a different stave, and the polish and file work carry small hand differences.

What is the difference between this and a poleaxe?

A poleaxe leads with a crescent axe blade and usually backs it with a hammer or a spike. A polehammer leads with the hammer and has no axe blade at all. The polehammer is the more specialised anti armour tool of the two.

How long does shipping take?

Two to three business days to leave the shop if it is in stock, two to three weeks if it is being made or engraved. Polearms ship in a long carton and shipping inside the United States is still free.

What is in the box

• One hand forged polehammer in 1095 high carbon steel
• American ash haft with riveted steel langets and butt ferrule
• Fitted leather head cover
• Care and oiling notes
• Forged and finished in Memphis, Tennessee

Explore the range

More in poleaxes, halberds, glaives and polearms and viking weapons, and read the guides.