Broad ax

[EWCTool]

Has anyone ever made a broad ax starting with a small ax and a strip of leaf spring?

[bigfootnampa]

I can't say about that but I am pretty sure that many a broadax was rebitted after it became too worn to work well... the process would seem quite similar.

[jake pogrebinsky]

Uff...It sounds tough,on almost too many counts to mention...

Judging by the question itself you must not have very much experience with anything similar.If that is indeed the case,then i'd try to at least avoid using the leafspring.Anything alloyed with Cr is funky to weld,and a massive weld like this...

A real,true broadaxe(not a carpenter's hatchet)is a massive undertaking,just because of the weight alone.One's bound to use more fuel than an already made axe costs.Also,much tooling will have to be made beforehand,often hard to justify for a one-off project.

Another issue is that it's extremely easy to screw up the balance of an axe-like tool,even a slight mistake can easily produce an unusable tool.With something like a broadaxe,times 10...

Sorry to be discouraging,but there it is.Best of luck in any case.

[ianinsa]

Has anyone ever made a broad ax starting with a small ax and a strip of leaf spring?

No, but you can "re-process" an old hoe quite easily, providing you have acsess to a forge.
Ian

[Frank Turley]

We made a 12" one time and wondered about the approach, because all I had seen, save one, were manufactured. Edgewise,the eye stands proud of the blade. We worked with an old ½" X 4" wrought iron wagon tire. We roughed out the blade shape and thinned a length for the eye. We forged a loop for the eye, and drifted it with a forged and sanded, shop-made drift. The eye was cropped, scarfed and Tee-welded to the back of the blade. The high carbon strip for the cutting edge is fagot welded on one side only, because the axe is sharpend with a single bevel, the bevel always angling toward the high carbon steel.

We put a simple scarf, a bevel, along the high carbon length, to be facing the blade back when welding. This allows the metal to "flow" together better, than if the edge was a right angle. Without the simple scarf, The metel "bites into" it's neighbor, even at a welding heat, and may create a shut. We used two coal forges that were fairly near each other for the weld. We were hollering at each other as to what the temperature might be. At a sweating welding heat, We ran to a common anvil and got the central one third of the length welded. With two more welding heats, we got the fagot completed, but it was rough and had shuts. It took probably a half dozen or more heats to smooth the weld. By hammering and disc sanding, I got a fairly good blade shape. Prior to hardening, I beveled the cutting edge but left blunt about a 1/8" thickness. We used quenching oil in a sheet metal trough for hardening, and we tempered to a purple [527ºF] with an oxy torch. Thence, a final cleanup and sharpening.

It was not easy.

http://www.turleyforge.com Granddaddy of Blacksmith Schools

[EWCTool]

Sorry I did not provide as much detail. I was thinking of more or less arc welding as opposed to forge welding. I could imagine that would be a very difficult ordeal. I would try to get the middle welded first then work from the edges to try and get it right. I have heard of people welding leaf spring to worn axes to give add to the life of the tool. I figured if that could be done then why not just add a bit more material and make a broad ax out of it. I was thinking that if it was arc welded then the distribution of the weight would be more accurate and the balance would not be off by too much.

[jake pogrebinsky]

Ah,well,my apologies-one track mind

That's probably fairly practical.The leaf spring mostly is not overly wide,but broadaxes with a narrow long edge were used by some.Else use a hoe like Ian suggests.
The tool can vary widely,but generally is used as a paring chisel,bevel up,at about 45 degree angle to the grain,and quite flat.It'd have to be stout enough not to vibrate in use.
Helps if the flat side is a bit convex(can probably be shaped with residual welding heat).
Heft can be gotten by using a 5-pounder,or an old double-bit(i've seen broadaxes with an eye very close to that of a double-bit felling axe).
It would still be necessary to make a drift,to forge the eye off-center.Suppose some tricky handle-carving can substitute.

Luck :)

[bigfootnampa]

If you are wanting one to use I would say you'd be best off to buy an old one. I have seen them since the economic melt down at what I consider give-away prices. In antique malls for $50 to $75!! I have so many now that I feel too guilty to buy any more! Watch for cracking at the front corners of the eyes as that is a common flaw and while small cracks may not be serious for a while some are badly cracked there. Of course excessive wear on the blades themselves would rule one out for a user (unless you can rebit it... like Frank or Jake would). Look for a good blade and figure on making a new handle... I have seen many that were rehandled recently and those handles are so WRONG that they are simply wasted wood as far as I am concerned. I must tell you that it makes me toss and turn in my sleep when I have to pass up a beautiful broadaxe with a fine blade that is selling for less than $100... I hope that they find owners who appreciate them! I am too poor to rescue them all... so please help me!

[ThomasPowers]

On a regular felling axe the eye is centered on the blade. On a broad axe the eye is offset so that one side of the entire axe is flat. The broad axe is also chisel ground rather than double bevel.

Welding on a larger blade does not turn an axe into a broad axe!

(The wooden handles are often bent too to allow you to shave the beams without barking your knuckles).

[EWCTool]

Yeah that would be pretty dumb to see a normal ax with a really huge blade. Not to mention unprofessional and unusable. Next time I will try to specify what I am asking. I thought that it would be implied that the eye would be modified to fit the blade and save the knuckles and make chopping straight lines that much easier.

Taking all that into consideration, let me rephrase the question.

If you were given an old ax and a piece of leaf spring and told to make a broad ax from that how would you go about doing it. And dont say it cant be done, we are blacksmiths, cant isnt in our vocabulary.

just so people know im more or less just playing around with the idea right now.