folded hawk?

[rocketmann]

I've made 4 or 5 hawks now by drifting the hole for the handle with a slitting chisel and a tomahawk drift but I'd like to try doing a folded hawk. The problem is I'm not sure how to go about it?? Do I fold the hot steel around the drift and then try to forge weld it together with the drift inside, or do I just fold it in half and forge weld it together and run the drift thru later?? At exactly what point do I add the borax?? Thanks for any ideas.

 

[Mark Nelson]

You should put a post over in the Makers/Shop Talk forum. You will get the answer in no time there. Or perhaps a Mod can move this one for you. Good luck.

 

[R APPLEBY]

Do I fold the hot steel around the drift and then try to forge weld it together with the drift inside, or do I just fold it in half and forge weld it together and run the drift thru later?? At exactly what point do I add the borax?? Thanks for any ideas.

You can fold it around the drift to start or just make sure to leave enough of a loop to make a decent eye without splitting your weld. add flux when the steel gets a nice cherry red put the piece back in the heat( dont rush it) and you can flux more than once, allow the steel to get to a consistant bright yellow so that it looks like melting butter, remove and forge weld together(dont smash it with the hammer, firm even blows will do it) watch out for the flying flux its about 2400 degrees and it sticks to ya, dont try to weld it with the drift in the eye you will be wasting time and heat. you may have to repeat this more than once( good idea to try and weld up some simular scrap material to get the feel of the weld. if you are going to use a wedge in the eye set it a about a 45 degree off set from the weld other wise you will cause stress on the weld and it will split. hope this helps

 

[rocketmann]

thanks for the info, is it really that easy to split the weld? How strong is the bond in a forge weld? I know that arc welding is stronger than the parent material, Iwould think that a proper weld would not be a weak point? Anyway,I plan on trying this today,wish me luck!

 

[R APPLEBY]

A forge weld does make a good bond but at the eye if forced to seperate it will. Good luck, Post your reslts

 

[PropellerHead]

rocketman,

I'm glad that I ran into your post here. Wayne Goddard just did a folded 'hawk at a hammer in this last weekend. He showed us a great little trick if you have a forge that is at least 4" wide.

Wayne started by measuring the circumference of the 'hawk drift at the point where he was going to drift the hole to. He then took this measurement (4.5" for that drift) and put that in the middle of an iron bar that was 2" x .25" x 12". This was going to be a large hawk. This was put into the fire (coal forge) and allowed to come up to heat. The bar was then shaped into a "U" shape with the bottom of the "U" flat so there where three sides with two 90 degree angles that had a pretty tight radius. This was then put back into the fire and the bottom of the "U" was allowed to come up to heat again while keeping the parallel wings of the "U" cool.

Here is the trick! Once the back was up to heat, he took two pairs of tongs and grabbed each "wing" or vertical section of the "U" and bent the wings away from each other, going all the way back until the two 90 degree angles were touching each other back-to-back. This left a tear-drop shaped "eye" and two "wings" that were about 45 degrees apart, touching at the eye. From there it was a matter of forge welding the two wings together and putting a high-carbon bit at the cutting edge of the 'hawk.

The trick of pre-forming the body of the 'hawk by bending the "wings" back 90 degrees was just brilliant! It left the eye the correct size for the drift and already in an almost perfect teardrop shape.

Please let me know if I have not explained this so that it is understandable. The only reason that I haven't tried it yet is that my forge isn't wide enough to heat up the 4" to 4.5" back section with the wings on it. I guess I'm going to have to build a brick forge with a wide opening for just this kind of opportunity.

Cheers!

- Mike

 

[rocketmann]

Great tip!!!!!! I'll try that. You really should post that in the makers forum I'm sure that I'm not the only one who could benefit from this tip.. thanks for helping.:thumbup: