First belt axe/hawk

[Jonah k]

Hammered out my first hawk this weekend. Made it out of  1 1/4" pump shaft, kind of a mystery steel but is sure is tough. It is the same stuff I make my hardie tools out of. This was quite a challenging project for me because of the toughness of the steel and I made it all with tongs and the shaft was cut to 2 1/2" when I started. It would have been easier to weld a rod to it to begin with but I made a couple sets of tongs specifically for this so I wanted to use them( quite happy with them). Anyways the Pictures are of only forged and some with a rough grind pre heat treat. The handle on it is my old one from my cold steel frontier hawk I use for throwing and the blade is beside it for comparison. It's quite a bit heavier than the frontier but I wanted that, weighed the steel before I started. It throws quite well, I will post finished pictures in my the soon future.

 

[Dustin Quade]

That looks really great man i have never seen one with the eye quite like that.

[Jonah k]

Thanks man 

[Jonah k]

Also on a side note of have not heat treated this yet I'm not quite sure what it is but it was tough to hammer. Like I said the steel was pump shaft, the shaft was somewhat stainless high chromium content but wasn't stainless steel because it was magnetic so I'm thinking 41xx something 4140 4160 maybe. Don't think it was a simple carbon. For heat treat I was gonna normalize a couple of times then quench in warm canola oil then put in the oven for 90 min at 400. Any input on this before I do it would be apreciated. The hardie tools I have made wih this stuff I have left untreated seemed to work out well my hardie cut off is a little soft but I like that because it doesn't mar my hammers.

[arcc]

I can vouch for how tough pump shafts are to forge. A year and a half ago I grabbed a 3/4" and an 1" piece of scrap steel from work. I worked out the 3/4" stuff, it was tougher, than mild steel. It was probably medium carbon.  Then I threw the 1" in the fire expecting the same stuff. One hit and I knew I was wrong as it barely budged. I realized later it was a piece of pump shaft. After thirty minutes of forging I turned it into a chisel that I still haven't treated. Gonna be a killer when finished though. 

[Buzzkill]

Some stainless is magnetic.  IIRC the 300 series is not.  I'm not saying that it is stainless; only that the magnet test doesn't work for all stainless alloys.

[Jonah k]

It definitly gives your arm a work out.

2 hours ago, Buzzkill said:

Some stainless is magnetic.  IIRC the 300 series is not.  I'm not saying that it is stainless; only that the magnet test doesn't work for all stainless alloys.

Was not aware of that. We use magnet tests at work once and a while to check piping but it's all 316. I don't think its stainless though it is pretty resilient during forging.

thanks

[Jonah k]

Hey

Finished this hawk this weekend, here are some pics with my last knife and in one of my throwing targets. Made the handle out of a hickory sledge handle. I have never worked with hickory before and found it quite hard to work with. All my planes and spokeshaves dug in quite a bit even my electric hand planer tore it up so I sanded most of it to shape. I also sanded the taper a bit to much so I ended up glueing and wedging the handle, not what I intended but looks good. I will see how that holds up to throwing. Next time I will get longer stock and cut it to length after it is shaped. As for heat treat I quenched it  a couple of times playing around with it, it didn't get as hard as I was expecting. I think the carbon content on that pump shaft is on the low end 4130/4140 or something. Oh well it will be good for throwing and that is what I intended to make it for. 

It was a good learning experience and here it is