Hands On Hawks

[monstermetal]

This fall I am going to be teaching a "hands on" at our conference... Basically a 4 hour open forge slot with maybe 6-8 students.. I have a couple of hawks styles Ive made in the past but I dont think a open forge workshop is going to lend it self well to forge welding and we have a pretty limited time...

So I am looking for alternative designs.... Preferably ones that dont require forge welding ( I have considered taking a small hydraulic press and just quickly welding everyone hawk)

we will be throwing after making so performance is a consideration. But given the range of smiths and skill levels likely to attend I want to keep this pretty simple, I want a design that everyone will be able to complete. If I have some more advanced students I might provide them with an alternative design


Any ideas?

[rasklking]

I've made several well balance "hawks" out of large ball hammers. You've got a eye already, there's no need for welding. Good for learning drawing, and hammer control.

[ThomasPowers]

I always like to drift the eye of a ballpeen hammer larger for a using hawk---takes time especially with new folk.

Fast and "easy" Do you have a screwpress you can use for slitting/drifting? I'd advocate getting some say 1" medium to high carbon stock and have them slit drift the eye---set up a fence so it's hard to mess that up! and then hammer out the rest.

Old rock drill shafting is nice for pipe hawks; but you do need to weld up the cutting end because of the hole through the center.

Also think about having folks work in teams so one can hold and the other can sledge to move the coarse forging ahead *faster*! (they can then trade off for the other person's piece)

I also have them use bull pins for drifting as they are cheap (used at fleamarkets) and tough compared to my commercial hawk and handle drifts that are ductile.

If at all possible run a couple of folks through it at home first to identify the problem areas.

Of course if you have powerhammer access for your class then a ballpeen hammer head is a better possibility!

[MattBower]

I'm not a great hawk expert, but I do second what Thomas says about the bull pins. You can really lay into a bull pin with a sledge, and the better surface finish (compared to ductile) seems to help things along. Drifting to about 90% with the bull pin and finishing with a commercial drift -- used mainly as a mandrel -- to refine the eye shape seems to work pretty well.

[Steve McCarthy]

The NTBA web site has a pretty simple how to on a hawk from solid round stock.

[781]

Last year at SOFA Ryan Johnson did an excellent demo and made 3 styles of hawks
The first was slit and drift pipe hawk. He cheated and had the hole drilled, actually milled but he teaches college level machine shop and had the equipment.

The second was the typical forge weld using a hose shoe rasp

The 3rd was welded from two pieces of 1/4 X 1 flat stock. This was welded infront and behind the eye.


If you ever have the chance to watch his demo or are on a committe to pick demonstrators he was excellent and beyond. He also did finishing and mokume our of quaters.

There is a DVD floating around of this demo.