ive got some old ball peen hammers i want to turn into tomahawks. i saw a guy use a bull pin to make the handle hole bigger. what do you guys use and what size should the pin be?

ball pein- bull pin?????

iron woody he is asking if he can use a bull pin ( an ironworkers hole lining tool beat into a bolt hole in a steel beam with a sledge hammer) for a tomahawk eye drift. and he wants to make a tomahawk out of a ball-pein hammer head.

spang your 7/8 bull pin will work but remember it will make a round hole and you will want to drift the top more than the bottom so you have a tapered hole like on a froe.

Mark Aspery , in his first book , shows how he forges a bull pin into a hammer eye drift. Shouldn't be too hard to adapt his idea into a tomahawk drift.

Brian Brazeal posted on here how to make slitters and drifts. Worth finding it.

Brian Brazeal posted on here how to make slitters and drifts. Worth finding it.

i searched but i couldnt find it. can you show me the thread you are talking about? ive got a piece of solid round bar at home i could use to make one. i would rather make one if i can, cause paying 30 bucks for a chunk of steel i could make myself would annoy me slightly. but wouldnt it need to be a certain shape to work properly?

Nothing wrong with modifying bought tools. If you use the bull pin drift the eye from both sides so the eye narrows in the center. This way you can taper the handle slightly and the wedge in the end will make it as tight as you could wish.

Forging your own drift is really pretty easy, you could probably use a BIG ball pein hammer, it doesn't need to be real long if you drift from both sides.

Frosty the Lucky.

Turns out if you drift round and then hammer on the sides it forms an oval hole...

I suggest sourcing your handle materials *first* and then adapting your tools and processes to fit the handles.

I generally use a hammer handle for camp hatchets as they are easier to find and cheaper; but I do like larger handles than a ballpeen usually has and I use a bull pin as a drift and then use a hammer handle drift for the final go.

Yesterday I finally got around to making slot puches similar to Brian Brazeal's pattern. If you're forging hammer heads into hawks, you don't need to punch the hole, you need to drift it. Suitable stock for making a drift isn't hard to find. Jackhammer bits, large crow bars, and digging (spud) bars are all large enough diameter to forge or grind to suit. Thomas is correct that your handle stock is going to have to cooperate with your drift. If you're making your own handles, it's not such a big deal. If you look at the commercially available hawk drifts they're all gently tapered. I tried to make one that was fairly straight with a pronounced flair. In use, it's really difficult to shape the wood to fit that flair. A more gentle taper is easier to lay out. I've also opted to just make the handle rectangular in cross section. Having a tear drop shape obliges you to get the pointy end straight to the bit. Slightly off and it won't behave. Starting rectangular, it'll ride within the existing hole.

I've just started making them with pickaxe style handles. The hammer head type handles don't stay in for long if you throw the hawk.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned thus far is a bolster. The bottom side of the hammer head will get scarred up badly using the just the hardie hole. I've tried using my post vice - that doesn't work so well either. I'm going to make a bolster plate that I can clamp in my vice so there's ample room beneath it for the drift.