Heat treating a new hatchet

M

Maelstrom11789

Joined
Apr 17, 2012
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2
Hey guys,

First time posting, but i have been scoping out the forums for several years now. I have been making knives for a while, and recently (in the past few months) decided to get into hatchets and tomahawks. Started with railroad spikes, and eventually progressed to forging right from bar stock. The few HC hand axes i have made had just a blade (no spike or hammer in the back). Tried something new and I just made a new hawk out of a ball-peen hammer.

IMG_20120416_150029.jpg


After forging, i put it into my forge for hardening. The blade itself got to a high cherry, but the rest of the axe was a mid to low cherry when i quenched it. I put the entire axe into the oven at 450, drew a nice straw yellow on the blade and hammer, and then used a torch on the necks of the blade (from the eye to the blade, and from the eye to the hammer). Thought it turned out very well, however, when i hafted it i noticed that it rings very nicely whenever i actually make contact with something. Given that i am slightly new to the axe genre, i am curious if i heat treated it correctly, and if that ring is alright.

Thanks a bunch
 
450° is probably a little low for tempering. 450° should equate to a straw or bronze temper color. I think purple-red or about 500°F is normal temper for axes. Your's should be good and hard - assuming the original ball peen was decent. Smart move torching the eye. There's no need for it to be hard. I've cracked one before during wedging.

Sometimes you can achieve the same result - hard edge and soft eye - by doing repeated quenchings of the bit only (or bit and hammer only). Let the residual heat in the eye area run colors to the edge of the bit. When red-purple reaches the edge quench only the bit again. Leave the residual heat in the eye area and let the colors run again. Repeat until there's not enough residual heat to draw purple at the bit.

Then if you want, soak it in a 450°F oven for an hour just to relax the steel. Turn the oven off and let it cool in the oven gradually. But you'd probably be fine without the oven treatment if you use this method. With the multi-quench method you never harden the eye so there's no need to temper it.
 
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