Comanches

Gen 1 Mk 4 C BUG Hawks, Comanche Style. Retractable Lanyards and Paracord Overstrike Protection.

regrettably, the camera flash picked up a little reflection off of the jet black heads, making them look milky.

they look pristine in person.


Thin Stadia BUG Comanche.
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Diamond Stadia BUG Comanche.
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Dirty Little BUG Comanche, Blind Top. a great concealable little surprise for whan ya might need to BUG some buddy who's buggin' you....
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thanks for lookin'.

vec

These are all "Beautiful" Brother Vec !

And the Multi Camo's like Cpl. Punishment's getting are Real Nice, I really like them there what I would call "Hawk Perfection !" Your making some Mighty Fine Looken Hawk's Vec, Thank's for sharing all the picture's Everyone,
 
These are all "Beautiful" Brother Vec !

....Your making some Mighty Fine Looken Hawk's Vec, Thank's for sharing all the picture's Everyone,


thanks, brother snake'.

i attempt to do my best. i want the appearance to let folks know about the performance inside each hawk.


performance will always be our main goal.

if they are "purdy" ...well ...maybe that will make the wives and girlfriends want one, and unlike other beautiful tools, we can fix these up to new anytime after ya beat the tar and snot out of them. gotta love composites.

i don't like to settle; it wouldn't be correct to ask the Investors to.

the whole point of the Hawk Project is to develop something better, and to continue improving on a tool that i feel is superior for my purposes; the Investors' feedback makes that possible. We are lean, and always will be, but i think that shows in the work.


i reckon that a proper hawk looks good mostly because form follows function.

we don't send out hawks that i don't want to steal for myself. :D:thumbup:

vec
 
Orange helps alot when it comes to finding your hawk if it bounces into thick underbrush. For a trainer it makes alot of sense. If you see the old black and white photos of Native Americans from the early and mid 1800s, there are pictures of hawks in all styles, lengths etc but it is pretty obvious the longer hafts are for hand to hand combat versus throwing. Vec, a quick question. I have an HB Forge Shawnee throwing hawk and I love it to pieces, it has a 19 inch hickory haft. When I throw it I can feel a spring or flex in the hickory that I'm sure aids with the rotation of the hawk in flight. Do these composite hafts mimic this or does it feel different throwing a composite hawk?
 
Vec, a quick question. I have an HB Forge Shawnee throwing hawk and I love it to pieces, it has a 19 inch hickory haft. When I throw it I can feel a spring or flex in the hickory that I'm sure aids with the rotation of the hawk in flight. Do these composite hafts mimic this or does it feel different throwing a composite hawk?

that's a good question, brother.

i feel the spring, but that doesn't mean someone else does.

i'll say this -

the composites in the handle are very resilient.

if you lodge a long Gen 1 Mk 4 handled hawk and really crank on it, you will see it flex, if that's an adequate example.

that's one reason why i always cringe when folks suggest that i have Graphite in my handles, when they feel the lightweightness; while i love Graphite in a lot of composite applications, i think it absolutely does not belong in a tomahawk handle, because it is so stiff.

the hawks aren't really that much lighter than wood anyways, they just have better weight distribution IMHO, which is possible because of the way i purposefully lay the fibers, and the fact that the handle has two cavities in it, as opposed to being relatively homgeneous, as wood is....

as they are, the hawk handles favor being bent forward and back, and resist bending (more, anyways) to the sides, so you are going to get more of the whip effect in the advanatageous direction, which might aid targeting (i haven't done suficient research to confirm that, but i gotta say, i've seen some pretty incredible bullseyes with our hawk mods - i am trying not to add to my hawk addictiion by getting into throwing more ...it might be too late already - har!).

these ain't no plastic poles.

anyways,

Graphite's also a great electrical conductor, which my insulative handles would not benefit from.

........

we are getting a lot of throwing-only hawk folks contact us all of a sudden.

i think it is time to consider a Competition Handle for them - it wouldn't be too different from our existing Gen 1 handles - i think i'd just toughen the ends of the handle (considering how many of millions of times they might fly, compared to our already-tough hawk caps)


....and i think we need to explore Ballast Modules;

i was noticing the other day on the Gen 1 Mk 4's that there was nothing to stop me from putting a larger screw (more mass) or some liquid in the Through Tube for some interesting hurling effects. - 'might be good when you had a big chopping chore too. maybe you brethren could help me out with that when we start prototyping - i'm all about the Hawk Party - hehehe!


vec
 
PS, do you do hawks with wooden hafts as well? or just composite?

we do both.

the second hawk from the right is a Faux Cherry Heirloom Hawk, which is entirely composite. we'd had a lot of Traditionalists buy these under the agreement that we don't publish their names, they are so ashamed of going Space Age. i am not kidding BTW.
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we also have made wood/composite handles in the past.

i've got some new ideas in that regard that will probably debut on a TOPS hawk pretty soon.

i have a high respect for good wood handles, but they are hard to come by, and they limit me to making just another hawk IMHO, vice something more, like with the Through Tube that we have, and other features, especially Centers of Mass Manipulation, for boosting performance.

i want a Super Hawk.

the Faux Cherry Heirloom, and the other wood-simulating composite handles we offer have a slightly rough tactile surface which i think is an improvement over beautiful natural wood, when it comes to performance.

watch for the BUGs i am going to do soon with Traditional aspects, brother.

thanks for listening.

vec
 
vec

I love that Faux Cherry Heirloom Hawk. That would look great with a damascus hawk head. I'm in trouble now, gonna be spending more money on hawks and vec handles now. Just curious what kinda composite is in the handle or is that Top Secret?
 
My ak- and one of those Bug's,,, oh what the future holds.
 
. . . Centers of Mass Manipulation, for boosting performance. . .

FIll most of the through tube with cotton balls (add some petroleum jelly for firestarting tinder if you want), and a load of lead shot in the head end, you'll get much faster rotation on a throw and more mass on target.
 
FIll most of the through tube with cotton balls (add some petroleum jelly for firestarting tinder if you want), and a load of lead shot in the head end, you'll get much faster rotation on a throw and more mass on target.

i've discussed the shot idea with some of the Investors since the Gen 1 Mk 4 came out.

i don't want to put lead in the Through Tube because folks might want to save water in it.

water might be the ticket, in fact.

vec
 
I just carry a canteen. ;)

Now that I think of it, a few .45ACP rounds wouldn't be a bad load and not useless either.

Let's see, 17 rounds fit in a 24" tube. . .maybe a full 7 round mag's worth in the head and cotton the rest of the way. . .
 
Hey VEC!!!! can you experiment with filling those tubes with oil (say cooking oil), i'm curious to see the "damping" effects of it when chopping, throwing, impact etc......

plus the oil can be used with cotton balls for firestarting.

a "fluid damped" Vector hawk!
 
Hey VEC!!!! can you experiment with filling those tubes with oil (say cooking oil), i'm curious to see the "damping" effects of it when chopping, throwing, impact etc......

plus the oil can be used with cotton balls for firestarting.

a "fluid damped" Vector hawk!

neat idea, brother.

oil is good for calories, so maybe that's worth doing if you can keep it from being too "gimicky."


smart thinkin', you.

vec
 
Hey Vec, I'm guessing you, if anyone, has already tried this- most people seem tp want to add weight near the head to make the hawk hit harder, but based on some things you've said (and I tried) I wonder...

You recommend holding the hawk 2/3s of the way down for proper feel and balance if I remember correctly. Anyway, I tried that on my trailhawk and thought it felt right. So how about adding weight to the butt end so that you hold farther down the handle for the same feel, but with a longer arm you'd get better head speed and more power that way?
 
Hey Vec, I'm guessing you, if anyone, has already tried this- most people seem tp want to add weight near the head to make the hawk hit harder, but based on some things you've said (and I tried) I wonder...

You recommend holding the hawk 2/3s of the way down for proper feel and balance if I remember correctly. Anyway, I tried that on my trailhawk and thought it felt right. So how about adding weight to the butt end so that you hold farther down the handle for the same feel, but with a longer arm you'd get better head speed and more power that way?

good thoughts.

with the longer hawks (>24"), the length alone is pretty good to take advantage of the physics of the hawk alone - adding weight would be good if it was removable, otherwise we just start carrying a crappy axe IMHO. the speed and small bit's PSI is what makes a proper hawk shine - adding mass would jsut expand it into more of a unique axe hybrid.


so what would be helpful would be if there was a quick way to add and lose weight on the head end, like a steel plate added to the Overstrike Area just under the head. i think that might be the key thing on the shorter hawks especially. then you'd have more Overstrike Protection, and there are a lot of nice stock shapes in steel - imagine having a wedge under the head, about four inches long or so. oh mama, i wouldn't want to get hit with that.

an outer ballast weight like that, that served other functions (- like protection, or extra striking surface, such as i have suggested just now, brethren) would be more favorable than having an internal set-up in most circumstances IMHO, such as having something in the Through Tube, especially since the Through Tube wasn't constructed with something like the dead-blow idea predicted as a design factor.

we have a long way to go - the new Mark V handles are just a hair's breadth from allowing us to make Sectionals finally, so I don't want to get too involved with special ballast weights and things on either end of the hawks, which do their job without them sufficiently IMHO, when a real breakthough in hawk technology is right there on our fingertips, to really expand what a hawk can do.

too many ways to improve the weights as improvisations anyways, to limit ourselves to just one way of doing things.

i guess i shoulda just said - have fun with your hawk!

we'll all work it out together. i look forward to seeing what all you cool cats, the Investors, manage with your hawks.

i love it. :cool::thumbup:

vec
 
vec

kinda off topic but what's the best thing to sharpen/keep a hawk sharp with?

i like these.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=36799


the bevel on most hawks is pretty steep - if you get it down to almost a Scandi Grind, for lack of a better word, and then break the edge at a sharp angle, you will have a tough, almost blunt micro-edge (30 - 45 degrees maybe, very small across) as a secondary edge, and the hawks will do very well, for a long time.

folks make their hawks too sharp and fine usually - hawks are not knives, knives are not hawks.

the two noble tools part molecules on different principles, with different force applications on the same;

hone that edge as i suggested, and i think you will be very pleased, whether chopping, throwing, or doing combatives.

HTH.

vec
 
You recommend holding the hawk 2/3s of the way down for proper feel and balance if I remember correctly. Anyway, I tried that on my trailhawk and thought it felt right. So how about adding weight to the butt end so that you hold farther down the handle for the same feel, but with a longer arm you'd get better head speed and more power that way?

Two problems I see with that.

1.) For throwing, it'll move the center of rotation towards the center of the handle lengthwise, give a slower rate of rotation, so there will be greater distance intervals between when the head is bit-forward, and also probably reduce the impact.
2.) For chopping, if you want heavier duty, or just harder hitting, you want the weight in the head. Since Vec likes 'em long, you still grip with your primary hand wherever it feels good on the haft, this hand guides the hawk, and is why you don't grip it on the end with that hand. The second hand goes further dow toward, or at, the end of the haft for the power swing.

Works well on my 24", and I'm sure the 27" will only be better.
 
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