Mini Hatchet; Merit Forged Steel

T.Saslow

T.Saslow

Periodic Thinker
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Jun 12, 2013
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About a week ago, my Mother and I received emails from a family friend that he was coming home from the country Georgia. He has been stationed over there for around two years as a member of the Peace Corps, teaching children English in a small town. Although he isn't coming home for around 7 months, I wanted to get to work on a Welcome Home gift! After going through the Mini Hatchet thread by Hacked, I knew that I wanted to do a small hatchet; I just love how small, yet useful they are! So I went on the good old Fleabay and somehow won a heavily trafficked item- A 1.5 lb-ish Merit Forged Steel hatchet! When I got it, the haft was still attached to the head, but only with a small/undersized wedge which came out by hand. Today, I decided to start the handle. Here is my process and the steps I took to (almost) finish this handle.



I start with a 5/4 piece of Ash (I can only get humongous boards of hickory at my lumber yard and it's way to expensive for my small scale "operation") and traced out the shape of the handle I wanted to use.


I then come in with a jigsaw and cut out the blanks; keeping the kerf about 1/8" away from the line so I have some space to screw up and fine tune the shape. I always leave a few inches to the tongue so I have some space to work the eye down to shape. This is just me, I'm sure it isn't really necessary. I also mark a center line in both the X, and Y axis so I can make sure the contours are even.


After I get everything cut out, I start shaping. I use a spoke shave to do the majority of the contouring and come back later with the rasp to clean things up. On this haft, I purposefully left it a tad thick. The recipient of this has big hands and I don't want it to be too small :rolleyes: When I get to the other side, I use the center lines I marked to make everything symmetric.



Using the center line again, I mark the shape of the tongue using the inside of the eye itself and a mechanical pencil with the lead drawn out a ways. I adjust the position of the tongue by eye so the bit lines up centered on the apex of the handle. I hope that made sense :P


As shown a bit above, I start shaving away at the soon-to-be tongue until I reach the line. When I get there, I start removing the excess material until I can pound the head in a little ways with a mallet. I do this until I get the head where I want it.






After I get the head where I want it, I make the sides nice and even and thin them down considerably. I leave about a 1/4"- 3/8" difference in thickness between the handle portion and the region where the tongue meets up with the eye.



I did have a bit of a oops here, albeit a small one. The front of the tongue doesn't go all the way to the front of the eye. It is only about a 3/32"-1/8" gap but so it is more of an aesthetic problem than structural. No biggy!


I then sand the handle to 220 grit and apply a coat of BLO. In terms of contouring, sanding, and fitting processes, this haft is finished.


Sometime next week, I will update the thread with how I go about the wedging process. I want to show some people at my school next week and something tells me the principal wouldn't appreciate me walking into school with a completed hatchet in my hand :eek: I'll also make a leather sheath for it; maybe next weekend.

Thanks for lookin' around! I wouldn't mind hearing your opinions, critiques, or comments :)
 
That's a great looking handle xXBackyardCrafterXx, I might need to look into picking up some ash like that for some of the projects I have. I'm sure it would be easier than the scrap wood and old handles I've used up till this point. The head seems to be in great shape as well. Should be a good little hatchet for your friend.
 
Hacked said:
That's a great looking handle xXBackyardCrafterXx, I might need to look into picking up some ash like that for some of the projects I have. I'm sure it would be easier than the scrap wood and old handles I've used up till this point. The head seems to be in great shape as well. Should be a good little hatchet for your friend.
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Thanks! Ash isn't too difficult to work with and can be found fairly cheap from my experience. Sometimes you'll even get a little bit of figure to a piece!
 
quinton said:
Thanks for sharing your work. Your friend will be happy!
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No problem, Always wanted to do a WIP thread and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. I think so as well, he seems to appreciate that goes into this sort of thing more than others. We shall see!
 
work in progress photos always good.
your descriptions are somewhat confusing to me but the photos do a good job of explaining the process.
i've had mixed luck using Ash for striking tools, i am sure some of the Ash i used was not sound.
thanks for posting

buzz
 
Kind of you to post 'work in progress' pictures. Provides an incentive for others to attempt similar projects. I can see that you're not new to choosing wood blanks or being able to maintain the symmetry of an evolving haft.
 
great shape on the final handle, i heard ash is almost nearly as good as hickory for shorter handle so no worries there! it also have a good look when sanded and oiled.

Really dig the shape, again.
 
Thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words!

Let me know if you want me to clarify something Mr. Buzz :)
 
After a busy couple of weeks and nights cut short due to Drivers Ed, I finally Got around to hanging this hatchet. Is I usually do, I chose a contrasting wood for my wedge; Blood wood. I usually use Purple Heart but I felt like changing it up this go around :)

I start off by marking center on the tongue. As you see later, I get the kerf, for the most part, centered, but my saw drifter to the right a bit. Not a big deal considering no one will see the inside of the tongue, but it's still there and I wish it came out straighter :(


Once I get my center line marked, I cut it about 3/4 down the length of the tongue. *You may want to go about 1/8" deeper than your original mark though as when you knock the head in place prior to wedging, the head will move down the tongue about 1/8" or so.* To cut the kerf, I used a Backsaw.


Here you can see my cut wen't a little to the (my) right.

Once I get the kerf cut, I mark out the dimensions of the wedge using the length of the eye of the axe and the depth of the kerf as guides. I always make my wedge about 1/4" longer than the kerf.


I then cut out the wedge and take it to my brand-spankin' new grinder and used the wrong belt to hog off material until I have a wedge :D This step is pretty much self explanatory but what the heck right?! press down one one side more than the other until you make an apex on one end (centered of course). Then knock down the other end of the wedge to about 1/4" wide or so. You may want to do bigger or smaller depending on how much space you have between your tongue and the walls of the eye.




And I just couldn't resist....


When I hang a hammer, I seat the head HARD by putting the head on the tongue and knocking the handle on the bottom with a mallet. Usually you get little curls at the bottom of the head when you do this-


Now, I know there is a lot of controversy about using adhesives, swell-lock, BLO, etc. to hold the wedge in place. I personally like using All Purpose Construction Adhesive on my wedges. I haven't had any problems and it lubricates the wedge going in as well. Of course you can use anything you like, This is just what i like doing. I put a dab of glue on either side of the wedge, spread it about, and insert it in the kerf. Try to keep the wedge as centered as possible so you don't have gaps. Unfortunately, I tapered the perimeter of the wedge too much so I wound up with gaps anyways, But that's beside the point.


When Beating the wedge in, I use another piece of wood to act a sort of buffer between the wedge and the mallet. In this case, That didn't work perfectly and the top of the wedge shattered :( I still got the wedge in nice and tight and the top of the tongue mushroomed out nicely.



Once you get her in there nice and tight, Trim the tongue and the wedge to about 1/8"- 3/16" from the top of the head.



This next step isn't really necessary but I polished the top to about 800 grit and rounded over the edges to make it look nice. It's a gift after all :)


An additional step following the completion of the wedging step would be to trim off the curls at the bottom of the head. I didn't have any pictures of this because...well, it's just taking a knife and cutting them off :P

Finally, Here are some totally not staged pictures of the hatchet at it's finest :)






Please excuse my shoes, the telephone pole, and the houses in the background :D

Obviousely, some of the steps on this project didn't come out perfectly and there are a lot of things on this hatchet I wish I could go back and redo. However, I like the outcome and it is a perfectly usable tool. After all, "Perfection is merely the absence of character" Tanner S. 2015

I just got a new suply of leather so I hope to update this thread soon with a sheath included and some final shots. Feel free to critique, comment, or ask questions :)
 
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