I found a really great video about axe making the old fashioned way. One very interesting point was that this firm had trouble competing against cheap imports nearly 60 years ago so it must be a lot harder with china and other countries around nowadays. It is a must watch video.
I have great respect for those old time blacksmiths. I have one and only one tool that I consider to be absolutely irreplaceable and I believe it was made by a highly skilled blacksmith. It's a 5' long pry bar formed from a repurposed old axle of some type, one end of the bar is unworked and still identifiable as an axle, the other end is an exquisitely crafted chisel point, perfectly symmetrical except for a very slight but deliberate bend about a half inch from the end. I have no idea how old it is, my Dad found it in his barn when he took possession of the property over 65 years ago and since then it has repeatedly endured the type of abuse which would have pretzelled any equivalent-looking modern tool.
Along that line I prize a boatwright's slick given to me by a now long-deceased mentor, himself a boatwright of the first order. It bears no maker's mark, but has a socket that was clearly hammer-welded so skilfully that no trace of a seam can be found. The steel in it is wonderful---it takes a superb edge and holds it well. With it it is possible to carefully skive off a miniscule diaphenous shaving or to bear down and just rip huge chunks off----with control. That was how Byron used it fairing timbers and fitting joins. That tool sits in a prominent "place of honor" in my shop and every time I pick it up or see it I think of Byron, the old pipe-smoking shipowright who taught me everything I was capable of learning. Sadly, that was way less than I wish I had taken time for. But in those days I was busy earning a living and raising kids and had limited time for building a 16-foot dory whose design and execution Byron helped refine. I have been sure to let my son and grandson know the origin and value of that tool. We all enjoy using it. Denis