I was able to go to a friend's shop earlier in the week and he helped walk me through the various steps of forging some tomahawks. He also had a little hatchet that I really liked so I forged one similar to it out. The first here was made out of some cable Damascus I'd made a while back. The cable got thin enough that I welded together three pieces of it into a big blank which I used for a spike hawk:
After a little cleanup on the grinder:
The next is something I've wanted to do for a long time. It's a wrought iron (wagon wheel rim) wrapped hawk with a piece of high carbon steel forge welded to the back before wrapping (for a hammer pole). Then another piece put in for the bit. It was definitely the hardest of the three to do. The wrought wanted to move faster than everything else and it is certainly the ugliest in the just forged stage... I also really tried paying attention to how many hammer blows I had on each side as I cross peened the blade to keep things even. But...it ended up a bit thinner for the wrought on one side, so when I grind then etch, it won't be even on both sides for where the wrought goes to. Oh, well-I guess worse things have happened. This one will need the most work of the three on profiling. I got to a point where I didn't want to try forcing things around anymore with how the wrought was going all over.
The last is a little hatchet that I'm pretty hopeful for. It started out as a 3/4" thick block of mild steel. Drilled a few holes to help with slitting and drifting (more on that shortly...) and a 1 1/2" deep cut in the end to put a bit in later. This was a bigger piece of steel than the others, but for some reason, the cross peening went better than either of the other two and quicker. I'm going to grind in a subtle curve up to the top of the edge and probably shorten the blade just a bit, which will also help get rid of the small area on the edge where the mild started going over the carbon bit.
I learned a LOT while doing these and took one more step towards having "man hands" after all that hammering <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> . Slitting and drifting is quite the skill-one which I don't seem to have yet. Even with holes drilled to help keep things straight, I still had difficulties. It was fairly frustrating as I'd see one side of the eye bulging out more than the other... Thankfully, my friend was there to keep giving advice on how best to proceed. Hopefully I can grind things back to even on the eyes, as we made sure the blade was at least centered with the drift. Lots of fun and looking forward to seeing how these finish out. Any advice or suggestions are very appreciated.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
next time if the drift puffs out one side more than the other forge out the wall over the horn or with the drift in place to even out the eye. the one thing that never works is trying to drive in the drift to open the hole , it will always stretch only in the thinnest point ...
these look good and should make fine axes with a bit of file work/ grinding.
MP
Thanks very much for the advice, Matthew. On one that was getting lop sided, I ladled some water onto the thinner side then quickly started drifting and the colder side of the eye didn't want to move as much. There's a fair amount of meat on the eye still, so I'm hoping that the grinding and filing will get things ending up even. Next time, I'm thinking I'll go with what you suggested and do some more hammering on the eye with the drift in and get them more even.
Can I ask you another question? How do you decide on the various embellishments? I'm trying to decide on some filing, grooves, etc. and not certain the best way to go about it. I was thinking on the spike hawk, to file a groove on both sides vertically just in front of the eye where it transitions to the blade. I feel like there should be something on the spike side, too, but am having a hard time envisioning how to make it look right...? And what diameter files to use... I guess I'm just curious how others figure out how to do it. Thanks for any thoughts.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
well that depends... some times I just go at it with a file and see what happens those axe tend to rather simple with just a bit of molding filed in or shaping on the eye, but most other times I do a drawing and plan everything out. I find for the latter that looking to historical examples is a great inspiration. I like to narrow the focus and look at a some of the smaller groupings like the Missouri War Axes or Pipe hawks etc, then see what kinds of ornamentation is common in that sub set, I will then come up with a design that incorporates those themes. I don't like to do a direct copy of historical work unless I have the opportunity to handle and get measurements of the piece I am reproducing but I enjoy working with in the confines of a historically plausible design.
For Mythopoeic or fantasy work I tend to plan things out similarly, but rather than being based of historical examples it is based on what ever inspired the piece,(Tolken G.O.T. etc), I will usually start with an Idea and build on that theme similarly to how I do the historical pieces.
MP
Thanks for sharing your process, Matthew. I'll have to look up some older ones and maybe gain some inspiration.
Jeremy
Jeremy Lindley, Apprentice Smith
