Mod'ing The CS Trail Hawk

Airmobile_21 said:
I stumbled to this forum from another site that was showing off some of their own members' tomahawk mods. I think I now have a hobby for life. Thanks to everyone here for all kinds of inspiration. These are the first two in what will probably be a long line of tomahawk art.

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Very very nice! Was the handle work done with a woodburner?
 
Was the handle work done with a woodburner?
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Sure was, I just found a generic tribal band tattoo design I liked for the handle, and made a stencil for it, then traced the stencil onto the handle, and filled it in with the only model of woodburner that Hobby Lobby sells. It took about seven hours to fill in all the space with that teeny burner head and get it deep enough to stay when I sanded it down to make it smooth. If I do something like this again, I'll probably put the woodstain on it first, since when I put it on after I did the woodburning, it took about four days to dry on the surfaces that had been burned. Probably because it was not porous enough to soak in like the rest of the handle.
 
Ready to apply decals and paint a few axe heads i found to etch some african honey badger prints on them , being in south africa i cant get the radio shack etching liquid , has any one made up their own etching solution and if so what was the contents and ratio please ?
 
You should try another computer supply or maybe online. The solution is just Ferric Chloride.
Making it would be difficult. It's made using a hydrolysis reaction with anhydrous ferric chloride. In short I'd just find some on the Internet somewhere, unless you know someone with a chemistry lab and free time. I've bought a small amount before on Amazon to do some stuff with knives.
 
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Hatchet, how do you like the shorter handle on the trailhawk. I know most people like them longer, but I tempted to cut mine down a bit.
 
Here's a couple pics of my very first trailhawk and also its my first ever hawk mod. I think it turned out great and I really like the way it feels in my hand with the suede wrap. the burn rings were done using a mini butane torch from Harbor Freight that costed me a whole $8.00,lol and it worked perfectly for that task. The haft was stained with minwax american walnut and the jimping which came out kinda messed up was done with my $10 Harbor Freight rotary tool. It was my first time trying to do jimping and I didn't hold it at the correct angle so it was pretty sloppy from my attempts to correct the angles. Also I cut about 3-1/2 or so inches of the haft which made it a much better length.
Well here it is...
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Darbyfett said:
Hatchet, how do you like the shorter handle on the trailhawk. I know most people like them longer, but I tempted to cut mine down a bit.
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It was my throwing hawk so it worked perfect. Also made a handy size as a camp hatchet. I would throw the longer ones as well but could not get the same speed.
 
Ponsau said:
You should try another computer supply or maybe online. The solution is just Ferric Chloride.
Making it would be difficult. It's made using a hydrolysis reaction with anhydrous ferric chloride. In short I'd just find some on the Internet somewhere, unless you know someone with a chemistry lab and free time. I've bought a small amount before on Amazon to do some stuff with knives.
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I can still buy it at my local Radio Shack as "PCB etchant solution."
 
gomipile said:
I can still buy it at my local Radio Shack as "PCB etchant solution."
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In South Africa? I think he was saying that there wasn't a radio Shack in South Africa near him. I'm not sure of any other options. I buy mine at radio shack here in Texas/ USA too
 
Ponsau said:
In South Africa? I think he was saying that there wasn't a radio Shack in South Africa near him. I'm not sure of any other options. I buy mine at radio shack here in Texas/ USA too
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Oops. I must have been really tired when I wrote that. I've seen a lot of people say that Radio Shack stopped carrying it, even though they still have it.
 
I modded my riflemans hawk last summer. I'll post it up tomorrow. Nice to see some great work!
 
I've seen a few hawks here with grooves cut into the hafts, for a better grip and for decoration. What is the preferred tool/method for doing this and keeping the depth of the grooves uniform?

Thanks for any pointers.

ioelus
 
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Frontier hawk. Made the handle myself from some local oak. Did some cross hatching with a small file, some filework on the head. oil finish.
 
As soon as I'm done with my hawk, I'll post up some pics
:)

Great looking hawk you got there btw!
I like the file work on both the head and the handle
 
ioelus said:
I've seen a few hawks here with grooves cut into the hafts, for a better grip and for decoration. What is the preferred tool/method for doing this and keeping the depth of the grooves uniform?
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WHat I've done a couple of times is:

1) draw on the design
2) dremel the design. I used dremel scribe, it doesnt dig in much
3) burn design with soldering iron
 
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