Feelin' the tomahawk luv!

B

bennett

Joined
Sep 22, 2005
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212
Forged my first real tomahawk this weekend!! I started out trying to forge a billet of chainsaw damascus. It cost me a few gallons of sweat, propane, and beer - not to mention the ire of my wife for the steady stream of profanity that I let loose when the billet failed to weld. Gentle creature that she is, she suggested making something else, so I thought I'd try the next "tall order" on my tall order list - forging a tomahawk out of a ball-peen hammer head. I'd gotten 3 of them (and some other good stuff) from a junk dealer at an area flea market. I tried forging a tomahawk from one about 4 months ago, but the hammer part cracked when I tried flattening it. So I put the hammers away, and did some other stuff with more "respectable" steel, and just sort of forgot about them. I started heating this one up, because I'd been doing some research that led me to believe that I had previously tried to work the steel at too low a temperature. This weekend, I made sure that I got the steel REALLY hot - from the color, it was close to welding temp. It took an insane amount of time, cost me some more propane and beer, not to mention a sore hammer arm and a blister, but it worked! It's not perfect, but it's still pretty darn good for a first try. I like the forge marks, so I'm going to leave them instead of smoothing it down with my belt grinder. I still have some work to do on it, but when it's finished I'll post a pic. In working this stuff, I found a totally different experience than I've had with railroad spikes, O-1, and 1084 - which are pretty much all I've used. This stuff was harder than a coffin nail!! Hard to get to heat, but held it's heat for a long time, until the blade started to thin. But man! the stuff was hard to shape - definitely not something I'd try every day (without a power hammer at least...). Anybody have any idea what type of steel might be used to make ball-peen hammers? I know it was made in the USA, but not sure of a year or even a brand (that stuff was worn off the side). Would like to know what kind of steel could be that damn hard. This stuff was like the rock of Gibraltar even after I was done forging! I bet it's still hard enough, even without normalizing and tempering, to take a good edge and hold it.
 
How big did you get the hole where the handle goes? Or did u leave it the way bought it? I had a hard time forging out my claw-hammer tomahawk because i had to drift the hole all the way through and it still isn't looking right :(
 
Wayne Goddard has given me saw steel on several occassions and the times I asked him what it was this was his answer. Its saw steel. Guess by now you can see where I'm going with this. What you've got is ball pein hammer steel. If you knew the maker of the hammer's it would make it easier find out. Could be an S-5 or S-7 since there both somewhat air hardening but it could also be a number of other steels. I tried once to do a hawk from a hammer with no luck so you should feel good about what you accomplished. Looking forward to seeing a picture when you get to it.
 
Hello All. I've been unable to post for a few days - been moving. When I get this thing finished, I'll be posting some pics of it. Raymond - your answer makes a lot of sense. I guess I didn't think about what it could be made of. Like a lot of "found" steel, it could probably be a number of things - like "saw steel". Do you (or does anyone) have any thoughts about tempering? I'm wondering whether to quench in oil, brine or water when I normalize it. I'm thinking of going with oil, but my experience with another "found" steel - railroad spikes - is that a brine quench makes the finished knife a lot more durable. I'm thinking that it might do the same thing with this piece of steel. Of course, I also worry about it cracking in water or brine! Any feedback on quench would be appreciated. Comanche - as far as the hole goes, I used a standard tomahawk drift that I bought from Blacksmith Depot (I think. I may have ordered it from Pieh. It's been a while since I bought it). It opens a sort of pear-shaped hole very nicely. It's actually shaped kind of like the outline of a pear-cut diamond. I start the hole with a punch, then open it up quite a bit on the horn of my anvil. I finished opening it with the drift. When it's opened to the right size, I form the inside of the eye to the right shape by hammering and turning the tomahawk head and basically beating the outside of the eye and forming it to the shape of the drift. I did this process over the course of a series of heats - heat , insert drift, hammer, remove drift, reheat and then repeat. In the end, the eye has a nice shape, and the inside of the eye has a smooth oval shape like the shape of the drift, with an even downward taper so the head doesn't come flying off the handle while the 'hawk is in use. You can make a drift, but the ones like I bought are only about $30, and they have an even, uniform oval shape, and an even taper over thier length, that is hard to get when you make one. This even shape makes it a lot easier to shape a handle to fit the hole. Forming the eye was a long, tedious process even using the drift. It would have been a lot easier, I think, to use the horn of my anvil for most of the opening part of the process. I really beat the crap out of the end of my drift! That's probably what I'll do next time.
 
Yeah i would buy a drift but im a little short of the cash and im a a tad bit mean with my money :o I got it nearly the right size using a really big rat tailed file that tapers up to about 3/4 of an inch at the biggest that i picked up for about $3. I found it real tedious to do all the drifting by myself so i "hired" my brother to help but he's on strike cos i splashed some hot flux on his arm when i was trying to make damascus and now hes on strike so nomore tomahawk till i raise the price. :grumpy:
 
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