Miscellaneous edge tools

The long handled gooseberry hook was used for pruning the centre of prickly gooseberry bushes.

The Oil Palm knife used in semi-tropical countries to harvest palm trees - sold as a bare blade for fitting with a handle by the user.

Although billhook shaped, this is in fact a leatherworkers knife for cutting hides. Similar were also used for other sheet materials such as linoleum, rubber. The invention of the Stanley utilty knife has reduced use and thus the availabity of this type. To confuse matters, some manufacturers sold them as fixed blade pruning knives.

Another leather or lino knife, this one was used by a cobbler for cutting leather shoe soles...

A french leather knife known as a 'serpette à cuir'.

Spar Hook or Spit Hook: A small billhook, usually between 6” and 7” long, used by spar makers for the splitting

of hazel spars (or broches), used for securing the top layer of thatch to the undercoat. Occasionally spar makers used a hook sharpened on the outside edge. In France basket makers also split their willow or hazel using a wide variety of tools, including small billhooks (see above).

Block Hook: A billhook with a straight cutting edge, used for chopping onto a wooden block. The curved nose of a normal billhook would prevent the cutting edge making contact with the block. Used for splitting wood or trimming branches to the required length. Often with a hook, or spike on the back, to allow the user to pull the next piece within reach. The Knighton and Rodding patterns of English billhooks also had straight cutting edges, without the hooked nose, and many Dutch hooks and those from some parts of northern France and Belgium are similarly shaped.

Nobby Hook: A Dorset/Devon variation, similar in use to a block hook, but more like a square nosed bill hook, often made from a broken, or well worn, billhook. Sometimes known as a Trimming Hook, they are used by hurdle  makers for cutting the protruding ends of hazel gads at the outer edges of the hurdle, by chopping against a piece of wood held  in the other hand. Straight edged billhooks such as the Knighton or Rodding Patterns were used for similar purposes.

Furze or Gorse hook: A large, strong, curved billhook (Ireland) or a heavy sickle shaped tool (Devon) used for harvesting shrubby bushes such as gorse for use as animal fodder or bedding.

Bean or Pea Hook: A longish medium duty hook used in some areas for similar purposes as the furze hook. Also use for cutting down dry bean or pea plants for fodder after the harvest of the crop.

Sickle: A light harvesting hook, with a narrow tightly curved blade that opens out towards the point. Often with a serrated cutting edge, and used with a slicing or sawing movement.

Grass Hook: A light duty reap hook mainly used in domestic gardens, often with a sheet steel blade riveted or bolted to a steel shaft.

Reap or Rip Hook: A medium duty hook with a curved blade, heavier than the sickle, used for cutting of grass or weeds, and harvesting of corn. Used with a chopping motion.

Osier Hook: In some parts of the UK a hook sharpened on the outside edge was use for harvesting osiers (willow) for basket making. In France and Belgium a billhook with an offset blade was commonly found, and in Holland a special form known as a rijshak was used.

A griendwerkers bijl or rijshak...

Hop Hook:  For cutting the strings that held hops to the hop poles long handled hooks were used, consisting of a socketed or tanged blade similar to a small reap hook that was attached to a pole some 10 to 12 feet long. Often these also had a small hook projecting from the back of the blade that could be used in lowering the hop bine to the ground, or possibly also in the fixing of the network of  that went from ground level to the tops of the poles for the hops to grow up.

Basket-maker’s Hook: A very small bill hook, with a blade about 3” to 4” long, used by basket makers for trimming the end of willow withies that stick out from the woven basket. Like the vine hook, it has now largely been superseded by the uses of secateurs.

Secateurs & Serpo-secateurs: The invention of the secateur in by Bertrand de Moleville (a former Minister to Louis XVI exiled from in France after the Revolution, and who, prior to the return of the Boubons in 1815, occupied his spare time in invention) and promoted by Pierre Antoine Poiteau (botanist, head gardener at Montainbleau from 1822 and from 1829 to 1851 director of the Revue Horticole) led to the gradual decline of  the pruning hook, particularly in France*, where it had been widely used for trimming grape vines (La Taille). For a while hybrid tools, the Serpe-Secateur (also known as a serpo-secateur)or the smaller Serpette-Secateur, were manufactured – a pair of secateurs having a small billhook blade (sometimes an axe blade, or both axe and billhook, or even a small sickle) projecting from the rear of one or both cutting blades. Some versions were like a billhook with a secondary secateur blade added.

* Secateurs were at first not widely used in vineyards, and in his 1887 publication ‘Eléments d'Arboriculture Fruitière’ Louis HENRY decried their use, stating that they damaged the shoots and led to disease. However by1898 Paul COSTE-FLORET in his work ‘Les Travaux du Vignoble’, confirmed that in the Mediterranean regions (from Languedoc-Roussillon in the west to Provence in the east) they were widely used as they were quicker and safer to use: « La Taille est exécutée par des hommes expérimentés se servant du sécateur, plus expéditif,  plus commode et moins dangereux que l'ancienne serpe au­jourd'hui complètement  abandonnée ».

The secateur seems to have been more readily accepted in England, thanks mainly to William Robinson, a Victorian gardener and writer, a contemporary of Gertude Jeykll.

Machete or Cutlass: For colonial use a lightweight tool with a thin, broad blade was developed, ideal for cutting overhanging vegetation and able to be used for long periods at a time without fatigue (e.g. cutting trails through dense undergrowth). These were made in a wide range of shapes and sizes, some of which have hooked end similar to an elongated billhook. These are sometimes similar in shape to the falx, a large curved sword used by the people from Dalmatia (one of the few weapons to strike fear into the heart of a roman soldier as its curved point was able to penetrate through the roman shield wall). Today many forms of machete and jungle knife are manufactured for export and also for military usage; however, many countries (e.g. Brazil, Columbia or South Africa) now have their own edge tool manufacturers and are no longer reliant upon imports from Europe.

Cane Knife:

For cutting sugar cane a wide variety of knives and hooks are used, some similar in style to the machete with thin flexible blades, and others very similar in shape to billhooks. Like the machete, these were made in large numbers and exported to the colonies.

Corn Knife:

A long bladed, sometimes curved, knife used for cutting of corn (maize) mainly found in the USA. In the Balkans the billhook, or wide heavy sickle similar to the English furze hook, was often used for the same purpose.



Pruning Chisel: 

For removing branches from trees that could not be easily reached, a wide variety of tools were made to be fitted to a long handle. Some were similar to a large socketed chisel that cut in an upwards direction, with a billhook blade on the side that cut on the pull stroke, and others were S shaped, with blades that cut in either direction (see Coup-gui, below).

Coup-Gui: also known as an emondoir or an echellinoir, this is often similar to a small curved billhook mounted on a long handle and is used in France for removing the parasitic growth of mistletoe from fruit trees. Not found in the UK, although the pruning chisel type (see above and below) is found in both countries.

Coup-Pain: not strictly a billhook, but a type of sickle used for cutting bread. However, some have blades similar in shape to billhooks.

Coup-marc: used for cutting up the marc or residue from wine or cider presses, it usually has a long handle and may be similar to a slasher in shape. Sometimes an old blade is remounted in a shorter  handle and used for other purposes, such as cutting up smaller pieces of the marc or for chopping kindling wood. Many different patterns exist, some axe shaped and like a small hayknife. It was known in the cider regions of England, e.g. Somerset or Herefordshire, but is rare and not commonly recognised as such.

Tea knife: A small billhook used for  pruning tea bushes in India,  some African countries and other areas Usually with scales of hardwood, bone or even ivory rivetted to a through tang.

Banana Knife: A small hooked knife used for  cutting bunches of bananas from the plant. Also used in the banana ripening factories in the UK such as that run  by Geest in Warminster (Wiltshire) from 1958 until it closed in the 1980's. For more images visit banana.org

Woodsman’s Pal: For some reason the billhook never became popular in the USA,  although several manufacturers did offer them. However a combination tool  (billhook, digging tool and machete), designated the LC-14-B, designed by Frederick Ehrsam (a Swiss émigré) in 1941 and manufactured by the Victor Tool Co. of Reading, PA, became the standard issue to US Marine Corps.  During the Vietnam War it was known as a Type IV  Survival Axe, the main component of the "Tool Kit, Survival, Type IV" issued as NSN8465-973-4807 under specification  IL-S-8642C, and was  manufactured by Frank & Warren, Inc. It is still made in several  variations of size and type of handle  by Pro Tool Industries of Boyertown, PA..  Un-licensed copies are now being made in India  and Pakistan,  but are usually of poor quality

Farmers' hooks: Several English manufacturers  offered combinations of billhook and hammer, with and without nail puller. Sometimes referred to in the catalogues as Gentleman's hooks, but probably should be called Gardeners' hooks.

Another combination of billhook and hammer with a tanged handle. There is no maker's mark on this one.

Gooseberry Hook: A small pruning hook with an extended shank to the blade to allow pruning of prickly bushes such as gooseberry. Similarly shaped tools were some times known as Raspberry Hooks.

Blackberry or Bramble Hook: A larger version of the gooseberry hook, used for cutting back brambles.

Asparagus Knife: Some shapes of asparagus knives were similar in appearance to the gooseberry hook, although  generally they had straighter blades. Many regions used a tool that was more like an elongated chisel or gouge, but some look like a narrow, elongated  billhook.

Sheaf Knife: A small curved knife use by thrashers to removes the binding of the sheaf before feeding it into the
thrashing machine. Often found with a hole in the handle for a loop of string  to go around the wrist so that it would not drop into the machine when the sheaf was being separated. US  makers produced a leather glove with a cutting blade attached.

Fascine Knife: Although the billhook was not widely used in the USA, one type often  known as a fascine knife was used by the military for creating fascines and  gabions out of brushwood (hurdle like structures), used to support earth  embankments in dug-in gun (cannon) positions. Later they were more widely used  for machine gun emplacements, and in the French and UK armies ‘pattern’ billhooks were  issued as a tool to machine gun units in WWl and to Pioneer Corps.

Game-keeper’s Friend: A multi-purpose tool combining  billhook, axe, spade and machete in one compact format – presumably designed  for the game-keeper to carry into the woods when managing the estate. A similar tool was used when trapping rabbits using snares or nets.

Combination hooks: Several makers offered a combination of billhook and hammer, with and without nail puller, and  some French makers offered a combined billhook and letter punch for timber  marking in place of the more usual tool that combined the punch with an axe  blade. A combined billhook and large hammer head for driving in stakes for use in french vineyards is also sometimes seen.

Miscellaneous Tools: A wide range of other chopping  and cutting tools can be found for harvesting a variety of crops, these include Beet Knives, used  for topping and tailing of sugar beet and other varieties or mangolds or  turnips grown as feed for livestock and Cabbage Knives, for cutting the thick woody  stems of cabbages and sprouts; Lettuce Knives for trimming lettuces; Cotton knives (USA) or  just general pattern Field Knives. In France  the ‘serpe à betterave’ is a billhook shapedbeet knife with a thin blade.  English beet knives often have a spike on the back (similar to a block hook),  or sometimes on the front of the blade, used for picking the next beet from the  pile… In India  a billhook shaped tool with a tripod leg arrangement, used cutting edge
uppermost, is used for removing the husk from coconuts and for the preparation  of vegetables for cooking.

Other Hooks: Some other trades use  hooked tools, similar in appearance to small billhooks for the cutting of soft  sheet materials. Plumbers and glaziers use them for cutting lead or zinc sheet;  saddlers and shoemakers used them for cutting leather; electricians for  removing the insulation from cables; and they have been made for cutting  flooring materials, such as linoleum. Often of a good quality, they are  sometimes mistaken for pruning hooks, although it is possible manufacturers  sold the same tool to different wholesalers for different uses………

Choppers and Cleavers: Many meat cleavers and choppers share similarities with billhooks, and vary only in  the blade profile. In some countries there is no distinction between the word  for a wood-cutting tool and that for a meat cleaver, and in poorer households  the same tool was probably used for both tasks. In the UK many distinct regional patterns of meat cleavers can be found. Many billhook makers also made meat cleavers and choppers, although some makers specialised just in butcher's tools.

Slater’s axe, or Zax (Saz or Sax??) Used for cutting slates to  size, commonly found with an offset blade and a point on the back to punch the nail hole, they closely resemble a square edged billhook. Longer and narrower versions without the spike were used in the quarries of Cumbria.