It's not a first stab at an axe because axes don't stab. Haha.  Anyway I am getting ready to start on my first axe head. I've done some knives and I've done some forge welding.  The question I have is this:  Should I cut the slit and drift the hole for the handle before or after I hammer out the blade and forge weld the bit in.  This will not be a wrapped style of axe head by the way.

It is generally good practice to slit and drift as a first step after selecting the blank.  Doing it that way will save wasted effort on those blanks that develop serious problems with these steps... common, because this is one of the hardest steps!

Yeah, slit and drift first, it's the step most likely to fail so not investing any more effort than you have to before it fails is . . . Gooder.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Awesome, thanks guys.

Definitely slit and drift the eye, but dont worry about getting it perfect to size for your handle first because the eye will distort as you shape the blade. 

 

I was talking to Elmer Roush this weekend and he was talking about another technique where you can slit the back all the way open, then wrap the back around a drift and forge weld it. I had never seen that before. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.