David W Babcock

Thanks for the advice, lol I only read it after I started again though lol. I made a little hot chisel and slit about 3/4-7/8 section on the back end and bent over to form the hammer. I have a power hammer so no striker, but between it and my 6lb mini sledge, I’ve gotten most of the hole drifted, seems to be going well. Im going to make a die with a small round on it, to form the neck of the hammer then I’ll just Forge it by hand from there, then draw out the axe face. At least that’s my plan lol. I’ll throw a pic up when I get it further along. Regards

Good Day, I have an associate who has asked me to Forge him a hatchet (or smaller axe) with a nice hammer head on the reverse. I told him just use the back of the axe I could upset it over an inch wide. He would prefer a real hammer head and splitting head on the other side. I had almost a 4” piece about an inch wide by 2” thick of 4140, I thought would work well. Unfortunately I drifted the hole to similar to where you would on an axe (monosteel not mandrel wrap) and didn’t leave enough metal for the hammer, so I’m going to just make this one a nice splitting axe and start over. Here is where I need advise. When I was trying to see if I could move some metal to develo the hammer portion it was off setting my drift eye hole. So I’ve thought ok, I’ll form the base of the hammer first then drift the hole this next attempt. This may make me throw off the hammer head when I drift the hole. It would be easier to straighten that then deal with constantly reinserting the mandrel to keep the eye straight, but I’ve never attempted anything other than a wrap or monosteel axe before, with straight flat back. im sure someone here has made something like this or had a spike or something off the back of the axe that might have a couple tips they could share? I hate working on something to realize I went at it ass backwards, although that’s how I learn half the time these days lol