A couple of "no welding required" hatchets

[hammernhand]

where can i get a good pic of a drift for the eyes of an ax,i suppose im destined to make one as one cant be found near me,if i see it i can make it.

[jake pogrebinsky]

I can't but imagine that somewhere in the archves of this forum there's a ton of ideas.Very briefly,your drift=your proposed handle shape,minus the allowance for expantion when hot,scaling,and what finish filing that you plan on doing.So,find a handle that you like,and there's the 3-D size/shape of the drift...
But then again,it all depends on a type of an eye,too:Some you drift to finish size,some you work on the drift to shape.The more work-the smaller the drift,as you'll be forging against it,enlarging the eye.Best to think it through beforehand.

[hammernhand]

that makes sense,thanx.

[blazerbud]

Lots of neat ideas shown here.

Some of them, I think I will incorporate into some new projects.

The design of the riveted hawk gets my imagination started. There are so many different blade patterns, eye patterns, and rivet patterns that lots of unique combinations could give it a totally different feel. Like some fancy scroll pattern with 5 to 10 rivets. Utterly useless, but cool looking.

I also like the overlapped design of the riveted hawk. But I think it would be interesting to try and forge weld something with a huge bit shuch as this to where the overlapped pieces did not loose their shape, in other words, weld it but don't turn it into one piece, keep it looking like multiple pieces overlapped and layered.