Tomahawks

[forginhill]

I appreciate what JPH is saying about this. I have a friend who got me into blacksmithing/bladesmithing. He was a professional himself and still makes a fair amount of $$ doing it even though he's well into his seventies. He has done it all, including getting into Japaneses swords. Like JPH, he has made many, many hawks and axes. He always makes them wrap around, mild steel bodies forge welded together and high carbon bit forge welded in. He believes very strongly that any smith worth his salt must learn to forge weld well. Like JPH said he has put in his dues and his welds don't fail, despite hard use. I've read old smithing books (M.T. Richardson) and they used to forge weld axles and all sorts of things and they were as good as new. That was way before electric welding. It's just a matter of learning to do it. Todd

[Tyler Murch]

JPH,
Why do you prefer medium carbon steel for hawk/axe bits? I'm curious because of your high experience there must be a reason.

[Tyler Murch]

By the way, didn't mean to be a snot nosed kid. I didn't think at the time I was being confrontational. Hindsights 20/20

[oakwoodforge]

One small tip I can give if you are trying the wrap and weld style hawk. At least the way I figgured out how... Forge the outer "skin" to shape, grind the scale off the inner surface of the axe cheeks. of the anvil. After starting to shape the eye on the anvil horn, and its sort of shaped like a "V", place it in a vise and heat the eye portion to red-ish-orange with a torch and crank the vise down to close it up, while still in the vise re-heat the eye and drift/tweak the eye till it looks good. Prep the high carbon "Bit" by tapering one end like a wedge ( make sure it is scale free) and cutting a few teeth in the sides with a chisel. Drive the "bit" in & hopefully the teeth will bite in and help keep it in place while you are trying to weld it, or you can cheat and tack it in place with a mig. The first wrap & weld hawk I did was a real bugger, I did it the really hard way, I had tons of trouble keeping the HC bit in place, it kept wanting to squirt out when I tried to weld it, extremly frusterating! But it was one heck of a learning experience.

Jens

[HWooldridge]

I'm not answering for JPH but medium carbon steel holds an edge just fine for an axe and is not as brittle as a higher carbon grade.

I've made a few 'hawks by punching a hole in an air hammer bit shank and then forging the edge. This is pretty fast and makes a good, serviceable tool. I also have one from mild steel with a high carbon edge that Bob Patrick made at a demo here in my shop. I gave that one to my son and it has seen heavy, regular use on typical ranchwork for the last several years without failure to any of the welds.

As I recall, Bob rough forged a piece of 3/8"x2" flat mild steel on the power hammer in one heat to get the eye section and then wrapped it over the horn to lay the blade sides together. He then fluxed the inner surfaces and forge welded the blade but left a cleft for the edge steel. We broke off an old 10 in Nicholson file and he used that for material. He wedged it into place and crimped the sides then one more heat welded the edge and allowed him to finish the shape. All in all, it was a very good demo on forge welding with a minimum number of heats to finish and resulted in a fine tool that my son may well pass on to his kids.

[sandpile]

PASS-DOWN hatchets. When I was a teenager. There was an old blacksmith in our hometown. Where we traded(Dumas Tx). I had rode a colt for his sons kids. This was a good family and I did not charge them for the training of the colt.

The old man asked me what kind of axe or hatchet I had. He looked at it and said "That won't do". He went to the pile in behind his forge and picked up a piece of what looked to me like scrap. He put it in the forge and started shaping it. Told me to break three inches off of a shoing rasp and grind the the teeth off.

In just a few minutes he had upset the middle and wrapped it, drifted his handle hole back out. After flatting the rasp, he the wedged it in and forge welded it up. Roughed it in on the anvil with a flatter. Stuck apiece of wire through the hole, handed it to me and said "Take it home and grind, file and sand it to suit you and bring it back for the tempering and draw. Maybe thirty/forty minutes total time for him. I remember he brought the whole head up to color and quenched it. I re-sanded the head and he drew the whole head back to a purple color. This would have been in the middle fifties.

It was the best hatchet I ever owned and it was stolen the first night I was in DALHART, After I moved here from N.M. Sad, but thats life.

Chuck

[JPH]

Tyler:

Do you know anything about C content and how it affects steels as far as hardening?? If not here is a basic intro...

The more C you have in a steel, the harder it gets (up to a point), but it also gets more brittle.. The less C you have, the brittleness comes down, but so does the hardness. Somewhere you have to make up your mind as to where you want to trade off...you can have a really hard and brittle blade or a really soft and tough one..or you can meet "somewhere in the middle"..It's a compromise...

Now medium C steel, say steels like 1050 to 1070...these have enough C to harden fully, they don't get too brittle when drawn and they are pleanty hard when tempered to maintain a cutting edge. There is a lot of stress put on a edge of an axe, a lot of impact loading as well. Either can cause problems but together it's much "worse"...

You can most certainly use a high C steel, and if you temper it properly you should be ok..Myself..knowing what I know about steels...I am staying with a medium C content steel for most applications that have to withstand the types of stresses that an axe or sword has to endure and use the higher C steels for shorter blades, or for edged tools that do not need to be as tough or to endure the stresses, impacts or flexing...

Hope this helps..

JPH