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Tomahawk I cast
- Thread starter CEvonk
- Start date
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That looks nice!
If yer not happy with that one, just send it my way, I'll enjoy it plenty. 
Very nice casting and cleanup job! Have you had a chance to put one of your bronze blades to work? I have always wondered about the durability.
If you notice in one of the pictures of the edge of the blade, it has tiny dimples all over the face. These are marks from peening with a small ball-pein hammer. Peening work hardens the various bronzes, which makes the edge harder in order to reduce its malleability. I have chopped through a 2x4 with this without noticing any reduction in its sharpness, and I have thrown and stuck it several times without any apparent damage to the blade. No bronze is going to be as durable as steel in long term use, but it is re-sharpenable and re-hardenable, and the material is certainly no more difficult to sharpen than steel.
This particular alloy is an aluminum nickel bronze of my own mixture, consisting of (if I remember correctly) 88% copper, 10% aluminum, and 2% nickel. The nickel contributes somewhat to hardness, but mainly to corrosion resistance. I don't think this has tarnished noticeably since I made it.
As soon as it gets warmer outside, I'm going to pour some new ones with a smaller lighter blade. The fat blade edge on this one was an attempt to imitate the look of a steel bit welded into a wrought iron stock. It's an interesting look, and puts some heft toward the edge of the tomahawk.
The handle and eye are oval, not pear shaped. The eye has a 2 degree drift (as close as I could get, to it.)
This particular alloy is an aluminum nickel bronze of my own mixture, consisting of (if I remember correctly) 88% copper, 10% aluminum, and 2% nickel. The nickel contributes somewhat to hardness, but mainly to corrosion resistance. I don't think this has tarnished noticeably since I made it.
As soon as it gets warmer outside, I'm going to pour some new ones with a smaller lighter blade. The fat blade edge on this one was an attempt to imitate the look of a steel bit welded into a wrought iron stock. It's an interesting look, and puts some heft toward the edge of the tomahawk.
The handle and eye are oval, not pear shaped. The eye has a 2 degree drift (as close as I could get, to it.)
