About the use of metal for axes

R

rayturn

Joined
Aug 19, 2024
Messages
15
Has anyone tried or understood the use of powder steel to make axes, such as ASP2005, using it to make axes with a hardness of 60, will there be risks?
 
This comes up quite a bit. “Why don’t they make axes out of <<insert metal here>>?”.

Axes are impact tools, and toughness is what counts. I’m sure people could make axes out of all kinds of stuff, but the truth is that simple 1045 - 1080 does just what everyone needs. It’s easy to work, heat treat, and you get consistent predictable results.

I’d never stand in the way of innovation, but there’s gonna be hard lessons learned for not much pay off. What are you interested in? Better edge retention? Is current edge retention not sufficient?
 
EngrSorenson said:
This comes up quite a bit. “Why don’t they make axes out of <<insert metal here>>?”.

Axes are impact tools, and toughness is what counts. I’m sure people could make axes out of all kinds of stuff, but the truth is that simple 1045 - 1080 does just what everyone needs. It’s easy to work, heat treat, and you get consistent predictable results.

I’d never stand in the way of innovation, but there’s gonna be hard lessons learned for not much pay off. What are you interested in? Better edge retention? Is current edge retention not sufficient?
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Yes Mate, I want better retention, but actually I'm a new player, I heard about these high retention materials in the knife friends, so I was wondering if these could have the same positive meaning for the axe, now it seems that I don't understand the axe use case deeply enough.
 
DocJD said:
I would not want to trade toughness for hardness . IDK anything about the rest . 🤔
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Well Mate, I'm sure I'm not the first, and if you have some personal insights on the subject, I'm more than willing to listen.:thumbsup:I believe that helped me in my decision making
 
rayturn said:
Yes Mate, I want better retention, but actually I'm a new player, I heard about these high retention materials in the knife friends, so I was wondering if these could have the same positive meaning for the axe, now it seems that I don't understand the axe use case deeply enough.
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as far as I'm concerned, and I've used axes quite a lot, additional edge retention serves no purpose.
Sharpening my axes is a once or twice a year thing.

in my opinion, fancier axe steel is something folks like the idea of, but very few people will ever see the real benefit of.
 
Supporting quote:

Nathan the Machinist said:
Yeah I want to do something like a 2 lb boys axe. Something like a small forest axe? Most everything I see today is overly simplified, you don't see the contouring geometry like you used to see on something like a Plumb, and nobody is making an axe with optimal metallurgy.

One of my challenges however is the math.

If the starting billet is 6" x 4" x 1", the raw material starts off as 7 lbs of CPM-3V. Never mind the machining cost, do you know how much CPM 3V costs for seven pounds of it?

... Even before you get into machining, heat treat, and finishing, the raw material cost is a problem.

This is something I want to tackle someday, but I have to think it's going to be a very small run because there's not many people wanting to drop this kind of coin on an axe head
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SharpBits said:
Nathan the Machinist Nathan the Machinist is pondering making a axe using his D3V steel. If it comes to pass, expect it to be very expensive and in limited quantities. Absolute best gets very expensive and good enough is good enough for many reasons.
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and if Nathan ever gets around to making that, I doubt it will be even a 2 1/2 lb boys axe much less a 3 1/2 lbs axe.
 
SharpBits said:
You nailed the weight!
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I was half expecting one of those slab construction axes that have become so prevalent.
Good on Nathan for wanting to do a proper (in my opinion) axe head!

Hell, I'd be happy with a 2 lbs traditional style boys axe.

I doubt I'd buy one though, because honestly whatever that's going to cost is going to be outside my ability to afford it, and frankly I don't need it.
 
Blues said:
When Nathan makes it, most of us will use a chainsaw to take the tree down rather than mark up the new ax.
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Well I tell you what, if I had that kinda CPK axe money, there wouldn't be a tree left on my property.
 
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