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What would be a good steel to use in a heavy duty tomahawk for puncturing metal as well as cutting and chopping?
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good steel for hawk
- Thread starter jacobbjones
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4140 is about as tough as you get while 52100 is also extremely tough but holds its edge ALOT LONGER than 4140 does. Also laminated carbon steels are great like 1020 with a 1095 cutting bit welded in.
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It's important to keep in mind that strength is more important than toughness for chopping wood and punching holes in metal. Neither of those requires a huge amount of toughness. Preventing plastic deformation will be your biggest concern. Super tough steels like 4140 and S7 make great heavy impact tools but deform easily and don't hold an edge well. Their lack of hardness makes them less than ideal for chopping. S7 at 55 will roll and deform where something like 3V at 58 will suffer no damage because of the increased strength. If the alloy is sufficiently tough 57-58 is a nice hardness for a hawk. Some steels like 3V can go up to 60 and still be extemely tough.
I use 52100 in my hawks and think it has a great balance of toughness, hardness and edge retention. I harden mine to 58. L6 is a great steel to use as well and you only have to quench the edge and poll since it pretty much air hardens.
The beat steel you can use for a hawk is 3V but it's prohibitively expensive. Can't beat the thin edges you can get with it though and it has the best edge retention of any steel in it's toughness class.
I use 52100 in my hawks and think it has a great balance of toughness, hardness and edge retention. I harden mine to 58. L6 is a great steel to use as well and you only have to quench the edge and poll since it pretty much air hardens.
The beat steel you can use for a hawk is 3V but it's prohibitively expensive. Can't beat the thin edges you can get with it though and it has the best edge retention of any steel in it's toughness class.
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1060,1075,1084 are all good hawk steels..52100 is great too, Ive used it..Most of the ones Ive made have always been welded in cutting bits or solid bars of 1060 or 1080..A lot of folks use 1045, while it makes a good hawk it wont hold an edge long enough but its easy to sharpen and some like that..5160 makes a great hawk too..
Two things id like to add
Not all ball peens are 1080 steel, only Vaughn are known to be 1080
Jackhammer bits are not S7, Ive personally seen the spec tests from several and they were all 1045. The late Grant Sarver was a great smith and ran part of his business on sharpening manufacturing jackhammer bits.He worked with them all the time and told me that many something like 1045. Vulcan was some funky 1078 mix Pioneer/Delsteel used 1078 or 9260.
Two things id like to add
Not all ball peens are 1080 steel, only Vaughn are known to be 1080
Jackhammer bits are not S7, Ive personally seen the spec tests from several and they were all 1045. The late Grant Sarver was a great smith and ran part of his business on sharpening manufacturing jackhammer bits.He worked with them all the time and told me that many something like 1045. Vulcan was some funky 1078 mix Pioneer/Delsteel used 1078 or 9260.
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I like 4140. It won't hold a fine edge as long as some of the higher carbon steel, but it is very tough. Growing up, I did a lot of clearing of mesquite trees from the fields of the family farm. That meant cutting down into the ground to bust up the root ball before dousing it with diesel to kill it so it wouldn't spring back up like a thorny hydra. There are a lot of flint rocks in the soil of Comanche County, Texas, and you don't find it while chopping root balls until your ax splits it. So I appreciate a tough ax edge more so than one that holds a fine edge. 4140 takes a minimum of damage when hitting rocks or cutting sheet metal and will hold an ax working edge all day. Then it's easy to resharpen.
An ax being used more carefully for carving and knife-like tasks would definitely benefit from a higher carbon steel. 4140 and 1045, while having similar carbon contents, harden a lot differently due to the other alloying elements, and 4140 gets harder than 1045.
An ax being used more carefully for carving and knife-like tasks would definitely benefit from a higher carbon steel. 4140 and 1045, while having similar carbon contents, harden a lot differently due to the other alloying elements, and 4140 gets harder than 1045.
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I like 4140 .I've made tomahawks out of o1 52100 5160,after switching to 4140 I never went back.It holds an edge long enough for me to be impressed with it.I've also made tomahawks from 1045,as long as it's water quenched it holds an edge very well.If I were'nt impressed with 4140 I'd build tomahawks and axes out of something else.I'm not saying it's the only thing a tomahawk should be made of,but it deserves to be thought of just as viable a choice as anything else.
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Id like to add another two steel that I personally like very well..6150 and 9260, they are super tough and hold an edge very well..The problem with these two are that they are very hard to source and even harder to move with a hammer
I made a large rounding hammer out of 2 5/8" chunk 6150 round Once! I had to redress my punch(made from 5160) about four times before I got all the way through.
I made a large rounding hammer out of 2 5/8" chunk 6150 round Once! I had to redress my punch(made from 5160) about four times before I got all the way through.
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Id like to add another two steel that I personally like very well..6150 and 9260, they are super tough and hold an edge very well..The problem with these two are that they are very hard to source and even harder to move with a hammer
6150 is what 2Hawks uses in their hawks. I've only got one of them, but man that steel is awesome...
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Yes but he also uses casting to make his, Kentucky (Wolf Creek Forge) forges there stuff and 6150 isn't nearly as easy to work with when forging as it is with casting from the reading I have done.