Making a tomahawk

[jbrewton01]

I am going to make a tomahak out of 1/4" ware plate. I was wondering if I need to temper it after I finish the head of it?

 

[fast14riot]

This might be better answered in the axe, hatchet and tomahawk forum.

 

[Square_peg]

Yes. You need to first harden it and then temper it. And depending on the current condition of your material you may wish to anneal it before working with it. Do you know what type of steel you're working with? Is it at least a medium carbon steel?

Not sure what it is? Take the end of it up to red heat and quench it. Then test the quenched end with the corner tip of a file. If the file slides off it like like it was glass then it is good and hard. If the corner of the file digs in then it hasn't hardened. High carbon steel should be very hard after that heat and quench. Medium carbon steel might be semi-hard and need to be quenched from yellow heat to produce that hardness. Mild steel won't harden hardly at all with that process. Once hardened you'll need to heat it a second time to a lower temperature to temper it.

An amateur can do heat treatments with a little practice and patience. Basic heat treating of simple alloys is easier to learn than blacksmithing is. Read up on heat treating from at least two different sources. That will give you a decent general knowledge of what you need to do.

 

[Kentucky]

There are about three different kinds of wear plate..Do you happen to know which one it is? There is QT, AR and cladded plate..

 

[Nicholas McLaughlin]

I heard you can make tomahawks out of old ball-peen hammers, but thats something else entirely.

 

[jbrewton01]

I was going to buy wear plate that has a rockwell B85 and can be heat thaeted to a C56. Do you guys think that will work.