Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
I recently reground a Rogers Rangers tomahawk significantly to move it away from a combat tomahawk and into one geared for wood working, which would be far removed from throwing. Here are a few shots :
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/atc_rr_mod_top.jpg
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/atc_rr_mod_side.jpg
You can see the blade profile was thinned out significantly, and the spike removed. The blade was thinned out to drop the weight, but mainly to increase the penetration for chopping and in general improve cutting ability. I removed the spike simply because it made it too difficult to carry, but as noted by Brian and others, a spike does offer a lot to outdoors work giving you a scraper, digger and rough cutting edge.
In any case the new profile allowed much better chopping ability. For reference NIB, the Tomahawk chopped at 69 +/- 5% of the Gransfors Bruks Wildlife hatchet. The modified tomahawk chopped at 125 +/- 11 % of the same hatchet. Considering that the weight had dropped significantly, the chopping efficiency had obviously increased significantly, which was noted on the first swing. The blade was also not binding significantly to the extent I would consider it a functional drawback.
Cutting ability had increased significantly as well. However the bit is a little too long and thus you will suffer some torque disadvantage of the much shorter hatchet profiles. This bit could be shortened without losing any chopping ability, and would again cut down on weight which can be a drawback for one handed cutting work, especially limbing where you are cutting through wood instead of just into it.
I also found the handle to be too long for the new weight (which I forgot to record), and got better performance moving up a few inches. Thus you would want to shorten the handle as well, again dropping the weight a little. Finally you would want to modify the under sweep of the bit to allow a more comfortable grip for knife like work. With these modifications you would have a very high performance tool for general wood working.
Note of course you would not want to throw the tomahawk with the new bit profile as it would get bent too easily.
For completeness, I burnt the edge on the bottom of the bit (turned it blue when grinding) as I wanted to see what would happen in use, it just bent and I hammered it back into place.
-Cliff
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/atc_rr_mod_top.jpg
http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/atc_rr_mod_side.jpg
You can see the blade profile was thinned out significantly, and the spike removed. The blade was thinned out to drop the weight, but mainly to increase the penetration for chopping and in general improve cutting ability. I removed the spike simply because it made it too difficult to carry, but as noted by Brian and others, a spike does offer a lot to outdoors work giving you a scraper, digger and rough cutting edge.
In any case the new profile allowed much better chopping ability. For reference NIB, the Tomahawk chopped at 69 +/- 5% of the Gransfors Bruks Wildlife hatchet. The modified tomahawk chopped at 125 +/- 11 % of the same hatchet. Considering that the weight had dropped significantly, the chopping efficiency had obviously increased significantly, which was noted on the first swing. The blade was also not binding significantly to the extent I would consider it a functional drawback.
Cutting ability had increased significantly as well. However the bit is a little too long and thus you will suffer some torque disadvantage of the much shorter hatchet profiles. This bit could be shortened without losing any chopping ability, and would again cut down on weight which can be a drawback for one handed cutting work, especially limbing where you are cutting through wood instead of just into it.
I also found the handle to be too long for the new weight (which I forgot to record), and got better performance moving up a few inches. Thus you would want to shorten the handle as well, again dropping the weight a little. Finally you would want to modify the under sweep of the bit to allow a more comfortable grip for knife like work. With these modifications you would have a very high performance tool for general wood working.
Note of course you would not want to throw the tomahawk with the new bit profile as it would get bent too easily.
For completeness, I burnt the edge on the bottom of the bit (turned it blue when grinding) as I wanted to see what would happen in use, it just bent and I hammered it back into place.
-Cliff
