Mod'ing The CS Trail Hawk

Tye Possum said:
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Great clean look to that hawk, Tye, and I love the pics and knife that you put with it
 
Tye Possum said:
I've seen it on a few other hawks but all of them were pipe hawks too as far as I can remember. A guy on bushcraftUSA seemed to think it was a spot where they ground down some excess metal or something. Hopefully the heat treat is still good, I haven't heard of one breaking yet.
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I have one of those marks on my pipe hawk too, but not the rifleman's hawk that I refinished. I always thought it was a heat treating mark, but wondered why it wasn't on the other hawk.

Doesn't seem to affect anything tho
 
Where are you guys getting your stickers made with the fine line detail???

I just printed a sticker up today on my printer on an adhesive label and trying to trim all the fine lines out with a razor blad not only isn't fun, but it didn't work out to well. . .the sticker was a ripped up shred afterwards.

So I was thinking you guys probably had stickers made that only had the outline as the sticker. . .if so, where did you get them?

If not I'm gonna try to laser out a sticker out work tomorrow. . .and I guess I'm gonna hope that the laser (used for metal etching. . .but before you start trying to mail me stuff to laser engrave, the laser only has a 0.005" focal plane so whatever is getting etched/engraved has to be machined or surface ground flat to get even decent results) doesn't catch the paper on fire, but just burns out the part I don't want.

I wanna laser etch some sledgehammer heads.

Thanks!

chainring said:
Fire axe for a fireman buddy:

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I really love this thread, so many beautiful hawks.

I felt this thread might be appropriate for this question though. I plan to get the Frontier Hawk as my first axe, I like it because of how light it is and how it's more of an original 'trade hawk' design. I've heard that due to the softer carbon steel used for the eye, using the back of the eye as a hammer could reshape the eye and cause the haft not to fit. so my question is will using the back of the eye for hammering cause the eye to deform?
 
xamllew said:
I really love this thread, so many beautiful hawks.

I felt this thread might be appropriate for this question though. I plan to get the Frontier Hawk as my first axe, I like it because of how light it is and how it's more of an original 'trade hawk' design. I've heard that due to the softer carbon steel used for the eye, using the back of the eye as a hammer could reshape the eye and cause the haft not to fit. so my question is will using the back of the eye for hammering cause the eye to deform?
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Since the Frontier hawk does not have a hammer pole, the back of the eye is not hardened so that the eye can help absorb shock and prevent cracking.
If you need a hawk that will also drive tent stakes and nails and such, I'd suggest you look for a hawk with a hammer pole such as the Trail Hawk, Pipe Hawk, or Riflemans Hawk. Their hammer poles are treated and hardened; designed for the work your describing.
 
Thanks AznInvasion, I don't want a hammer poll but I keep thinking some day I might end up needing one. I suppose the eye will be strong enough to tap a small nail in or something like that, I mean it's still carbon steel, not lead or gold or anything...right?
 
Indeed it is steel, but the heat treatment is everything
You can have some if the highest quality steel around, but if it isn't heat treated properly for the task at hand, it will perform poorly

With that said, as long as you're not really smashing anything, I think you should be fine
I would say driving in plastic or wooden stakes should be ok, but definitely keep it away for hitting other metals or rock/very hard materials
 
TheAznInvazn said:
Indeed it is steel, but the heat treatment is everything
You can have some if the highest quality steel around, but if it isn't heat treated properly for the task at hand, it will perform poorly

With that said, as long as you're not really smashing anything, I think you should be fine
I would say driving in plastic or wooden stakes should be ok, but definitely keep it away for hitting other metals or rock/very hard materials
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I have the frontier hawk and can testify to that. Tapping in some wood/plastic stakes shouldn't damage the back of the head even if it isn't ideal. Good advice though, not to hit other metal/rock objects but most people won't be doing that...I hope. :P
 
I got a Frontier hawk yesterday, came sharp as a bar of soap, but very pleased with the thing so far. It's actually heavier than I expected so I'm glad I went with the frontier hawk. I've already sanded off the waxy finish of the haft and sanded all the paint off, the dreaded pitted surface is next, I'm not sure how I'll tackle that. I want to blue it after that.
Lovely suburban frontier pictures below.
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I'll leave the haft unstained and unfinished as it would pain me to see a beautiful finish get nicked up while throwing.
 
Just ordered myself a trail hawk!

I'm looking to do some etching. Let me recite what I believe the steps are for this process and you guys can make sure I have this down.

1) Figure out design
2) Adhere design to the surface to be etched
3) Spray paint the entire surface
4) Remove stencil for the design to reveal the bare metal
5) Place axe head in the etchant (ferric acid? - where can i get this stuff, hardware stores?)
6) Strip paint
Done!

Also, the 9V battery technique using salt water and q-tips looks pretty easy as well. I just need to figure out where to find those mini gator clips.
 
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If you want to throw your hawk, I would actually recommend you save your nice hickory haft and make a "bush haft" for throwing

Throwing will damage your haft, so why mess up your nice hickory when you can throw just as well with a tree branch cut to size
 
I was going to make my hawk a "Shepard's axe" style of haft with some pinewood (poor choice of wood but all that grows around here), I guess I'll try a shorter throwing haft as well.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to wrap the haft with? My hands are sore and calloused after extended use of my hawk.
 
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You can get both the etchant and the mini-gator clips from your local Radio Shack. . .it's circuit board etching solution, they should have it in stock, they do here.
 
Thanks!

Unfortunately, it looks as though the trail hawk is backordered everywhere. :( The seller states that it'll be sent out in 5-7 days. We'll see about that....
 
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