Black Locust OK for 'hawk handle?

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piccini9

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Mar 23, 2012
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I have a piece of steel that I hit with my motorcycle this past winter, damn near killed me. Cut the rear tire clean through and caused the back end of the bike to jump about a foot in the air. (I'll post pics if I can find them) I'm going to cut the offending article up and make a knife, and a 'hawk out of it. The knife will probably get an antler, or bone handle, and I want to use Black Locust for the 'hawk handle because of it's availability, indestructibility, and rot resistance.
Any thoughts on this, one way or the other? I'm all ears.
 
piccini9 said:
I have a piece of steel that I hit with my motorcycle this past winter, damn near killed me. Cut the rear tire clean through and caused the back end of the bike to jump about a foot in the air. (I'll post pics if I can find them) I'm going to cut the offending article up and make a knife, and a 'hawk out of it. The knife will probably get an antler, or bone handle, and I want to use Black Locust for the 'hawk handle because of it's availability, indestructibility, and rot resistance.
Any thoughts on this, one way or the other? I'm all ears.
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Ive made a few bows out of it strong stuff i dont see why it wouldnt work for a hawk haft. Rich
 
As long as you have a straight grain blank should work great Black locust is a pretty dense wood but a little soft thats why most guys use hickory its a lot harder . I say go for it the worst thing that could happen is you break your haft you can always make another .
 
I know it's a hard wood to chop through. I've had to clean up the deadfall at my Mother's place. I kept a few branches to use for something. I have found some of this stuff to have some black grain or at least some small wormy holes, surrounded by black. I'm hoping I have a good piece to do something with.
How seasoned is the black locust? One dead branch I cut was still in the tree, that was some hard stuff! It really dulled a few of my tools, had to pull out the 36" double bit to finish it off.
I just ordered another hickory bokken, actually a suburito, from Kingfisher wood works. They claim their appalachian hickory is more impact resistant than even other hickory. I can say that other woods are harder, but can/will break in half. Some tests show that a good piece of hickory will get a large split more often than just breaking in half. Then again, I'm talking about bokken, which have no steel mass at their ends, but do see way more impacts that the haft of a tomahawk should.
All it takes is the one missed swing to test out any hawk haft. Let us know how it works out!
 
Nice thing about 'hawks is that they're easy to re-haft. Give it a go and let us know how it fares.
 
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