eggwelder

this one would not oil harden. made from nondescript leaf spring, probably china. water hardened. went ping in 5 minutes. 3 times. next photo, same leaf spring, other side of centre hole. warm oil quench, hardened beautifully, torch tempered. excellent edge.

same bunch of springs, different leaf. cold oil quench didn't harden, so used water. got this lesson twice, except this one split along the spine of the blade and perpendicular to the edge. 

lesson: warm oil for free springs that are of origins unknown for me

i seem to be renovating every house i buy on every posting. leaves almost no time, but i do sneak in a day or two when everybody else is at work or school and i`m supposed to be making cabinet doors or installing the new microwave (warranty expired before installation )or what ever. when it warms up, i`ll get more evenings out there, cause TV watching is not my forte. 

Gergely, your english is fine, better than my hungarian. 

not smithing related      during my basic cook training at CFB Borden, Ontario.  during butcher classes we were breaking down whole pigs. had one student ask which part of the pig was the ham. he knew it was pork, but could not understand curing of meat and that you had to make ham, it did not occur naturally. he didn`t understand it to the point that he left cooking behind and i think joined the Military police.

got lead poisoning when i was about 13 or so. we (my cousin and I) were melting lead to cast cannons for a pirate ship model. hits hard and fast. put me down for 2 days.

the next week we finished making the cannons, up wind and arms length from the lead pot. then we took the pirate ship out to the lake and shot at it with .22s till it sank. we still chuckle at the memory. not the lead poisoning part. upwind and arms length still…..

Rat, I've forged  dozens of throwing hawks with A-36 mild steel. You're not forging a straight razor. It hardens more than one might think. I have never had on break or bend. The socket needs to be 1 1/4 " wide minimum to mount securely on the haft. A 1x 1 x 4 " blank will work fine. Drill a row of holes for the socket before slitting to get it straight. Spike hawks are evil and dangerous, avoid them.

i`ve had good success with RR spikes as well as mild steel. quenched in super quench, holds an edge just fine for throwing. just remember, you are not splitting bricks. spike hawks sell better. non spike hawks throw better. IMHO.

i use digging bars, crow bars, pry bars, etc for camping hawks. usually HC steel. whatever is cheap or free.

i really want a permanent shop. will have to retire soon and put down some roots.

thinking stack wall with timber frame, will give the steel roof some consideration, must look into rust resistance, my shop will be about 100 m from the north atlantic. on a windy day, everything for about 500 m gets covered in salt spray.

it`s only - 6 today, snowing. all my steel is under about 1 meter of snow and ice. when i forge in winter, the narrow propane lines on my forge freeze after about 45 min. it is easy to gauge amount of propane left by the frost line on the tank. shop is unheated, and have to open garage door anyway due to improper ventilation fans(none). then snow comes in melts, and freezes to ice on the floor.  mostly go tool hunting in winter, so far have scored a $20 4" post vice, 18 lb straight peen sledge, 1 cold cut chisel, 1 weird rectangular head straight peen hammer, a #130 stanley plane, and some octagon high carbon stock. have a line on some bottom swages made of wrought iron, and may have scored a fire pot, 600 lbs of coal, champion blower, and 4 tongs for $50. have to ship it from the frozen prairies though. or go get it. i guess you could call them family heirlooms, but i`m buying them from my uncle. would`t be the first purchased inheritance i guess

it`s -15 here with 1 m of snow. i can't find most of my metal, propane freezes after 45 min of running. and shop not heated. excuses i know, will get out there soon and finish a few on the bench

you might be my favourite hawk maker. next to myself, of course….

very nice. do you make your own handles?

i always do a break test, heat to red,  quench in water, smash with big hammer. if it dents, no good, shatters, its good enough for me to play with. i`ve found some crowbars that were mild steel, that sparked like carbon, but would not harden no matter what i did.  and one wrought, which was cool, and saving it for something.

if i had a power hammer i`d use it too. like where that project is going. i use octagonal crow bars for hawks. will have to try a knife like that soon when the snow melts

i have not photo documented the process from start to finish, the next one will get that extra effort.

this is for glenn as requested.

the knife with the brass guard weighs over 2 lbs, the handle is full of non lead fishing weight metal, mostly tin as i understand.  

this is just after tape and cardboard have been stripped prior to rasping/ sanding

those are awesome. hope you don't mind me stealing some inspiration from those.

heres one of mine

nice, i like your  style, am looking for more examples of your work. these are similar to some of my stuff.

Not being a knife maker, but being a chef knife user, running the egde the full length if the blad is a good thing. If you stop short, then as time goes by, the edge is sharpend so that, unless grount off, the small bit of material that looks so nice, acts as a stop preventing the blade from cutting all the way to the cutting board.

I believe that's the riccasso your referring to Rich?

deal with that a lot at work with house knives. heinkels uses it(the bolster) and i have brought more than one home to grind  down.  

as a professional CA  cook, i would love to show off such a beautiful blade at work. i may attempt making one myself one day.

it is and thanks. easy enough to do. sometimes cap the handles on throwing hawks. keeps the head on longer. the solder works, as well as tin fishing weights, but both are considerably softer than pewter, which is soft enough. you can mark the fishing weights with your fingernail.

had melted copper dissolve a cast iron ladle i melted it in.. will post a pic of it if i can find it. also had bronze go thru 1/4 in thick steel crucible on second use. 

you`ve set the bar for me. when i can achieve that level....those are beautiful tools

the forge welding is still eluding me 

the hooked beak hawk was actually a 1.5 pd ball peen hammer. weighed just over a pound when it was done, about 19 oz. my first "hammer" hawk. thanks for the comments. i have a nasty habit of making knives " ping" a lot . almost 45% breakage rate. am taking a break from those till spring when my oil quench turns to liquid again.

i`m new here, so i guess i`ll show some of my stuff. i don`t know how to make the pics smaller like you guys do.

these are all Railway spike. the ones with the head left on throw really well

this is antique/old crowbar. also my favourite hawk. throws very nicely and will go thru 4inch birch branch in about 3 swings.

i use whatever hard wood for handles, especially for throwing, because they break far to often. industrial type mop handles take minimal shaving down to fit, especially with the round hole.

I was a memeber of ABANA in 2004/5. still have the 2 quarterlys they put out. anvil`s ring and hammers blow. i have looked up the OABA on line. will probably join but i really only have less than 2 yrs left in ontario. is there a Newfoundland organization? that is where i`ll be retiring eventually. i only found one or two smiths there, and one was no longer smithing, was in a retirement home, and the other didn`t return calls. 

did some last fall on some knife handles.

was surprised at how easy it was, masking tape, file folder cardboard, and pewter. got that at a second hand store. if it pewter, it will be marked, and if its newer, it will be marked lead free. as mentioned by HWoolridge, undercutting, drilling etc to lock it in is a must

i`m new here, this will be my second post. i`ve made several tomahawks, all with round holes except 2. one is a tear drop shape, and the other rectangle, more on that one later. the teardrop shape i found very difficult to make handles for. maybe my taper was off, who knows. i finally fit a handle, fancied it up and it is nice to look at, but i`ll just do that with it, look at it. the round hole i found easiest, make a handle in about 20 min using  the hawk head as the tool for shaping , and have had no problems with them. use an iron workers spud pin to drift the eyes. makes a nice drop on fit, pick axe style.

 the rectangle eye is still a work in progress, being sized for a readily available handle accessible to all for almost no cost, if any. let me work on that before i get too detailed. i`ve forged the drift and only need to fine tune it. once it warms up.

on the right is the beginnings of the rectangle eye