Forging a tomahawk

[2nd artillery]

I have some mild steel that is 1/4in. think and 2in. wide and varyous legnthes long. I was thinking about forging some of this into a tomahawk head. I was wondering if anyone had any idea how to do this? I would be thankfull for any information. Thankyou

 

Have you tried doing a google search on this subject? I have seen several good sites with drawings and pix.

Have done it myself several times. I suggest a good forge, heavy anvil and assistance from a good forge welder. You can work yourself to death real quick making a hawk.

I'll try to find a good site for you.

:thumbsup:

Probably Musket Man will beat me to it!

 

[2nd artillery]

I never thought of that but its to late anyway. I took one piece today and tryed it out and i ended up useing the stick welder to hold it together. Andsince i dont have a forge i used the torch to heat up the metal. It didnt come out to bad for a first try.

 

[J.M.]

I just watched a demo a couple weeks ago on this topic. A large farriers rasp was used. Rasp was heated to cherry red (in a forge) then folded in 1/2 over a pipe where the handle will go. Once the folds were evened out and in line with the eye, the corners where the edge will be were tack welded. The piece was then fluxed with borax and reheated to cherry red. Aprx 1/2 an inch of the blade was hammer forged at a time to weld it up, working from the edge to the eye, and refluxing and reheating after each forging. Took the guy about 45 minutes to forge out a beautiful hawk that looked very old and gnarly. I,m going to give it a go myself and see how it goes. Good luck!

 

[Joe Yanta]

Let me first qualify myself as not knowing near as much as I would like to know about blacksmithing. I currently do bladesmithing and and have forged a couple of tomahawks and do it only as a hobby.

I know I am going to regret this, but.

To do forge welding you really need to get your steel up into the yellow area, this is around 2300 F, maybe even hotter. You need to be very careful where you forge. If you forge outside, what might look to be red hot in direct sunlight, but is really yellow hot in a garage. Cherry red is a good temperature to quench harden your forging. I heat in a controled heat treating oven using an accurate pyrometer to 1450-1475 F for my quench. I "soak" the steel at that temperature about 5-8 minutes per 1/8" thickness of steel. Then I quench in Brownells "Tough Quench". Now the steel is really stressed out at this point and to help it before tempering I put it in a toaster oven at about 400F until I reheat my heat treating oven to what ever I am going to temper at. And that depends on what I am going to do with whatever I am making.

If your going to do forge welding I would suggest you find an open forge that heats with coke. If you use a propane heated box type forge that is insulated with kaowool the flux will eat up your insulation like water eats up cotton candy, and kaowool is expensive. I dont know why, but I'll send you some pictures of the bottom of my forge if you dont believe me.

I suppose you could use Boraxo for flux? But look around and by a commercial forge welding flux. It cost about $20 + or - for a gallon can. Good flux will have a certain amount of iron, silicon and borax. Everyone making this flux has their own recipe but its all along the same line.

I just saw on ebay a day or so a go an anvil drift tool to make the eye with. On both of the tomahawks I made, I made the haft hole a little too big. It doesnt bother me how big the hole is because 250 years ago I would imagine you could get as many different tomahawk heads as there were blacksmiths.

I wish I could draw a picture but I'll try to explain it. Say you have a piece of low carbon strap 1 1/2" by 10". You fold that in half forming a haft hole and that portion is forge welded but not all the way to the end. Kinda looks like a duck with his mouth open. Some blacksmiths now forge weld a thin "bit" of higher carbon content steel between the two sides left open to make a better cutting edge and this is now forge welded to finish your hawk. Final forge shaping and heat treating is all that is left and your ready to make the haft.

If you want to make a pipe hawk, thats another discussion entirely.

Sorry to be long winded, I repeat, I am not an expert and only know enough to know how little I really know about the subject.

Joe Yanta

 

[J.M.]

Hi Joe, thanks for some more info on this. I am a rank beginner to bladesmithing, but find it fascinating. Been messing a little with forging, and know what you mean about colors and heat treating, it aint as easy as the good makers
can make it look! As to flux, the borax is tough on a gas forge, we use one specifically for making damascus and forging. The bottom is lined with thin fire brick coated with Satinite to help prevent the lining from getting ruined. It gets changed once a year and holds up O.K. A drift works nice, that was used once the eye was cleaned up and ready for normalizing. Might pick one up if I get into making hawks. What do you forge your hawks from? Someone told me ball pein hammers work good.The rasp was a different twist.Makes a neat "period look" when the rough teeth of the rasp are left around the handle.

 

[Joe Yanta]

J.M. its always enjoyable meeting someone who shares in your hobby.

I have forged two hawks, one of which has its own thread in this forum. The first one I just folded 1095 over, forged welded it and finished it. This is the one that ate the bottom of my Pro Forge. My forge doesnt have Kaowool lining but a ceramic or clay type of stuff. The flux loved it up anyway. Not bad, still very usable.

The second hawk I made I found a very old ice tool. After anealing it so I could reforge it into a hawk, I noticed I was blessed with a piece of beautiful damascus. I reforged it to what you see in its own thread posted down alittle in this forum.

Reforging ball peen hammers work, but be sure you get a forged hammer head. Cast hammer heads I dont know if they would work or not.

I forge O-1, 1095, 1084 high carbon steels. Here a pic of a small game knife I just finished in 0-1 tool steel and need to make a sheath for. I make only high carbon steel blades. I am not a big fan of stainless steel. I think a blade with character with a blood curtleing edge is much more useful than a shiney knife that is dull and hard to sharpened (and I bet I get flamed for making that statement but its only my opinion).

I love making knives. I have had tremendously good reports from hunters in the field on the performance of them.

Please dont take this as a commercial. I get inquiries asking if I do custom work.

This is a hobby for me and I am not into selling knives. I will make knives for those who want them. I make one knife a month for customers, I have a two year waiting list. Everything else I do I do for my own enjoyment of the hobby. I give my knives away as gifts to my family and to sportsmen who cant afford a custom knife who I think would appreciate one.

Forging knives is much easier than forging axes and hawks. I incourage anyone interest in trying to do so. Although I have never tried it. I think anyone could make a pretty decent little knife with a good piece of steel, a file, drill to drill pin holes, an open flamed stove top or propane torch to harden the blade and an ordinary oven to temper the blade with.

J.M. I love talking about metalurgy and forging. Chat any time.

Joe Yanta

 

[J.M.]

Hi Joe, I just got back from forging a rasp into a hawk shaped object. Pretty interesting process, had some help from more experienced bladesmith (his forge and press too). Came out pretty nice, got it tempering right now. Also pulled some deer leg bones from a home stabilizing unit and get them polished up and ready for mounting blades into. This new hobby sure is addicting. Nice talking with you, and nice pictures on the other posts.(by the way my first name is Jay).

 

Although not closed, it would be relatively easy to roll an open eye in a piece of mild steel to hold the handle because no forge welding is required. I have made several hawks by thinning the area of the eye, wrapping around a mandrel of proper size, then welding up close to the edge but allowing a gap between the two sides near the end for a short piece of old file. This is welded (sandwiched) between the two outsides and becomes the cutting edge. This is a relatively simple and fast method if you have a good coal or gas forge that will reach welding temps. Welding temp to my eyes is a whitish-yellow color, which is the same color as the fire and allows the flux to begin flowing. If you sling the piece down toward your feet and the flux flies off in a molten state, it is ready to weld.

You can also punch the hole for the handle in a piece of tool steel, such as an air hammer bit, which makes a very good all-round 'hawk.

 

[broken arrow]

The Nov/Dec issue of Backwoodsman has a little bit on forging hawks out of heavy wall pipe. Looks like an interesting concept.

 

[Deadeye]

One of our club members ,whose a blacksmith and knifemaker,
forges a beautiful small hammerhead hawk from a railroad spike. Forges the blade and leaves the hammer as is and punches a hole for the handle. I'll see if I can get a picture.