MAD MAX

​This was by far the hardest one to make so far.

​Ya, Scale is what I meant to say.

This is my latest hawk. Made from an industrial high carbon prybar. The light was wrong and it doesn't show that there are some pock marks from not brushing off the slag often enough.

Like Charles says the leaf springs are 3/4 thick and are great for this. I have tried a little upsetting a thinner leaf spring but its pretty hard to get it not to want to fold over and it mushrooms out leaving an hour glass shape viewed from the end. Leaf spring steel is hard to work with so be ready. and make sure you get it hot enough and I always stop pounding on leaf spring just BEFORE the heat color is gone. So in other words I stop pounding at a dull barely visible red.

​They are only about a pound or so each. The two made from Leaf spring were drilled after annealing and some forging. They were then drifted with a tomahawk drift from iron mountain forge. The center one was chisel split hot then drifted with the same drift. I doubt Ill drill any more as I had a heck of a time getting them drilled. As the leaf spring material is tough even in annealed state. I am considering keeping the top one as I am pretty partial to its feel. I am working on one made from a industrial high carbon pry bar.

​The top one and very bottom ones were built form Mobile home leaf springs about 3/4 inch thick. The center one I started out with a piece of 1 inch square that was from a broken pick ax bit. The leaf springs were xxxx to hammer out as I didn't have my anvil yet. And putting the hole through the leaf spring material was not easy at all. I have three more almost done.

I Got some pictures to load give me your opinion these are my first attempts at tomahawksi

​I am afraid I wont be able to make the event in May in Longview, Its so far away and I have no place to stay. If I went I would have to drive the 4-5 hours there stay maybe two then drive back. Motels are out of the question due to budget.

I am not using briquettes, It is real charcoal that I make my self From Oak and pine. So far leaf spring is all I have tried to weld. I need to get a roof over my smithing area because I have put it off too long. So it is likely all projects are on hold for a while. I have never hit something I was attempting to weld hard, I usually use a 14 ounce hammer on it.

Well to answer a few questions. My forge is a pretty small affair, It is a hand cranked Buffalo forge that I think might have been a rivet forge. I modified it a little and made it somewhat deeper with a brake drum addition. Charcoal is the fuel I use but I think its designed for Coal witch I have never used. It is about 25 inches across the pan and about 6-7 inches deep at the deepest part. I put it in a steel table more to my taste. Longview Wa. is a long way from me, about 4-5 hours. This may be hard to believe but I have went to 3 different smiths and asked about forge welding and none of them could do it either. One guy told me that its impossible to do with charcoal as a fuel. I have not been to any Blacksmiths events as yet, Despite the fact that I am not a youngster Such things have always been tough for me. I have never been a "joiner" . Now I am not saying anything bad about anybody, you all seem like great guys. I have just always been uncomfortable with such things . I may try and make the get together in Longview in May, but its a stretch. Another thing that suprises most people is that I have never worked with a single piece of mild steel its all been high carbon so far. Thanks to everyone.

​I have learned everything on my own, I have never had instruction on anything.

So I was thinking the other day about what I am good at and what needs improvement. I have two skills that I am what I feel, Better than average at. First is hammer control, I have always been able to hit exactly where I wanted to with a hammer. The other is filing, I can file something so that it looks almost machined. Now the bad. I am terrible at bending things so that they look even halfway good. When I do something where I have to bend it, it looks like a 4th grader did it. Next is one I hate to even talk about, I am SLOW it takes me forever to get anything done and when I need to work fast so as to not lose heat I usually lose the heat too fast. I am NOT artistic. I cannot do anything that requires any kind of artwork, its just not in me. Then there is what has become my nemesis................ Forge welding, I have tried to Forge weld something about 20 times to no avail. I usually try it once in a while then give up on it for a few months. I have been told that forge welding is the easiest skill in Blacksmithing to learn but I simply cannot get it. I guess Ill just keep on moving forward and try and get better at everything. I spent 5 hours Sunday trying a forge weld that never stuck so it will be a while before I try again.

I sure would have liked to find a deal like this when I was hunting for an anvil. I found anvils that were way more beat up than this one that the seller was asking 500 to 600$. In my amateur opinion you got a real steal.

I tried for 4 hours to post a picture and as you can see it still didn't work. But I thought it did. I did take 4 tomahawks to another blacksmith close to me And asked his opinion he didn't believe that I was the one who made them. He just looked at me weird and said" You couldn't have done these" Then just walked away. So I don't know if he was impressed or if he thinks they suck, he was a pretty strange guy.

I don't know about the one you are looking at but I got a brand new NC Cavalry anvil and I couldn't be happier with it. It is heavier than what you speak of at 112 lbs so that may make a difference. I found lots of beat up junk on the used market that was WAY over priced. Mine has super rebound and moves metal real well. It has lots of features that I personally really like, This is my two cents, I like the one I have others may not like the same anvil. I tried another anvil just yesterday that was marked like this: ACME 160LB 1951. It was poor in comparison to my NC but would be usable. Not all anvils with a certain name will be equal to each other is what I think, But I don't know that much. Happy hunting!

Here is a tomahawk I made

I went with a friend to drop off some scrap at a scrap yard and learned something. He had a bunch of old mirror brackets off of vehicles and some other stuff in the load. When they examined the load they had him put that stuff in the non-ferrous pile and weighed it up different and paid him a pretty high price for it. I asked about this a the yard guy said that "Stainless" refers to the decorative stuff and is considered a non-ferrous metal as it has almost no iron in it, "Stainless Steel" However he said is the ferrous stuff that is used for Knives, Rifle barrels, ect. He said that when searching for metals around folks that know what they are doing don't confuse the two. In other words he said if your looking for "Stainless Steel" Don't say you are looking for "Stainless". Live and learn.

I don't know what it is, but I am sure some of these guys will know. But What I have to say is that make sure you mount it real good. Preferably to a heavy block of wood of some type. I would think that a steel stand wouldn't work so well with an anvil this light. Happy pounding!

The only reason I know its in fact Stainless Steel is that It was a specialty after market replacement Installed by the mechanic and was bought as Stainless Steel. It is 1 1/2 in.

I went to a local Mechanic and asked if I could have any broken axels that he came across. He had no problem with it and he gets plenty as he deals with a lot of off road specialty guys. well I went to see if he had any and he only had one at the time and its a specialty axel made of Stainless Steel. Can I forge this into anything? Is it possible to heat treat it? I am told that Stainless Steel is just too much of a pain in the butt to mess with. I have plenty of other stuff to use I was just curious.

When I was looking for an anvil I ran into LOTS of what the seller refered to as "antique anvils". Well I got curious about this and got ahold of several Real life Antique dealers. They are the kind of guys that do antiques for a living. Everyone of them told me the same thing, They said that if an anvil was not at LEAST 200 years old it would not even be in the running for "antique" status. I would tell most anyone who had money to spend on an anvil to skip the used market and buy a new one, At least a new one isn't beat all to crap and is most likely made of better steel anyway.