2nd throwing ax

[dragon]

Hi guys.

Just finished this throwing ax this morning. It's made from a piece of leaf spring. It's my second attempt. The first I made years ago and gave to a friend, so it's sort of like a new first without anything on hand to compare with.

It's a little rougher than I'd like. I always seem to end up with lots of craggy areas in things I make that just make me not want to spend time sanding them smooth. Not sure if it's getting burnt up in the forge, or if it's the hammer(I need to re-polish it, it has a few dents), or both. Or maybe it's the way I'm using the hammer. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.

But it feels good to complete something nonetheless. It throws nicely, though I wonder if the handle is just a little long.

Since I've yet to successfully forge weld, the eye hole is formed by folding over and then arc welding along the inside and outside with 6013, then forged over to remove the obvious bead. Anyone know if that's a bad thing to do on spring steel? I asked a welding instructor once what kind of rod to use on spring steel and she had no clue, since it'd never come up before in all her years of welding.

[Double Y]

Not bad at all, how did it throw?

[dragon]

Not bad at all, how did it throw?

It flies well, though I don't necessarily throw so well, heheh. Until making this, I hadn't actually thrown one of these in 5 years or so. But I seem to be picking up the knack again.

Only thing that's bugging me after throwing it a bit is that the head and shaft pop apart a lot, especially if I don't hit the target right. but I seem to recall this being a pretty normal occurrence with these things. When I threw these before, we had set of 3 or 4, and whenever this would happen, we'd just use another to beat it tightly back into place. With just the one at the moment, it's a little more annoying.

I'm fairly pleased with the edge toughness, too. Accidentally struck a nail while using it as a hatchet, and it barely did anything to the edge , which is probably excessively sharp for an axe, especially one intended mostly as a thrower). I'll need to hone that spot again, but the damage wasn't nearly so bad as I would have expected from similar experiences with edged tools.

[walkerironworks84]

Nice looking thrower! I like the rough look

[Maurice]

How did you perfect the balance

[ThomasPowers]

Looks more like a hawk than an axe to my eye.

Arc welding shouldn't be much of a problem if you used a good preheat/postheat to avoid cracking in the HAZ and for what the weld is doing I don't think there would be a lot of fuss in the alloys as in traditionally made versions that area is all wrought iron anyway.

I've found the leaf spring can be harder to get a good forge weld in than a plain high carbon steel; but it can be done. I don't advise it as one's first forge weld or after a long while without doing them.

Looks very "functional"!