- Joined
- Aug 26, 2000
- Messages
- 938
When I was approached for the video with Paladin, I wanted to get some sort of period-looking hawk to do some of the technical sequences. Over the years I've purchased some knives made by Tim Ridge of Swamp Fox Knives. His work is all hand forged and has that grayish tinge to it that makes it look like it came from an 18th/19th century local smith. These weapons are all hand forged and if you did not know better they would fool a rookie into thinking they were original. Tim was the man that made custom bowie of my design. ( Actually more Virginia Longknife than bowie). At any rate I asked Tim to make me one of his standard hawks, the whole time thinking this was going to be one of those big jobs that everyone likes. Well, I got the tomahawk and was initially shocked at how small it was. It's about 1/2 inch smaller than the Cold Steel Trail Hawk and quite a bit lighter. The handle is flat and about 3 1/2 inches short of that cs hawk. Apparently this hawk was made based on the original found on page 61 of Baldwin'g Tomahawks & Pipe Axes of the American Frontier. The design is similar to a tracing Tim took from George Carrol's collection. It is for all practical purposes what the Mark Baker calls a belt axe in his book A Pilgrams Journey. Around Yorktown and Williamsburg they have found quite a few of these little-guys and apparently they were more popular than most think. Well, I did not quite know what to think about this. Everything I had worked with was always larger. After the doc cleared me to start light work-outs again, I got the thing out and began playing with it. You know, flourishing and recovering and that like.
First of all the axe is head heavy and can deliver a quite weighty strike. In spite of the flat handle it is easy to access (draw) from either left or right side. After handling the heavier hawks this thing seems to almost jump out into your hand and goes into action very fast. No moving to position as with the heavier one. Because it is shorter it is really very quick and makes recovery from a miss almost immediate. Well, all this said and done I now have a new appreciation for why the Longhunter types preferred this smaller axe. . The only thing that I would change would be the handle to be tapered toward the end where the head is slid up to the loop and secure that way. This one has a wedge to secure which was apparently common at that time. It has to be the handest thing I've seen for field/camp work. Now, you'll be there a while if you want to chop down some big timber, but for the saplings and underbrush, kindling for fire you just can't beat it. If you want a really different experience pick up one of these from Tim's website. I think you'll like it.
My Best
Dwight
First of all the axe is head heavy and can deliver a quite weighty strike. In spite of the flat handle it is easy to access (draw) from either left or right side. After handling the heavier hawks this thing seems to almost jump out into your hand and goes into action very fast. No moving to position as with the heavier one. Because it is shorter it is really very quick and makes recovery from a miss almost immediate. Well, all this said and done I now have a new appreciation for why the Longhunter types preferred this smaller axe. . The only thing that I would change would be the handle to be tapered toward the end where the head is slid up to the loop and secure that way. This one has a wedge to secure which was apparently common at that time. It has to be the handest thing I've seen for field/camp work. Now, you'll be there a while if you want to chop down some big timber, but for the saplings and underbrush, kindling for fire you just can't beat it. If you want a really different experience pick up one of these from Tim's website. I think you'll like it.
My Best
Dwight
