Remedy for Loose Head on Vietnam ‘Hawk?

UglyJim

UglyJim

Joined
Mar 15, 1999
Messages
567
I apologize for resurrecting an issue that I’m sure has been addressed before…I know I’ve seen this topic discussed in the past, but I haven’t been able to locate the relevant threads with the search feature. If anyone could point me to the old threads that cover this, I’d really appreciate it…

I have one of the early versions of ATC’s field grade Vietnam Tomahawks that I received last summer. I’ve been very pleased with this ‘hawk (in fact, I’ve been quite impressed with all of the ATC products that I’ve handled), but I have noticed a minor problem. After picking up the ‘hawk for the first time in several months, I noticed that the head was slightly loose. It doesn’t seem to be in any immediate danger of coming off the handle…it’s just a bit “wobbly”. I was wondering if there was anything that I could do to tighten up the handle-to-head fit. I seem to recall hearing that traditional ‘hawks sometimes benefited from having the head assembly soaked in oil to correct this problem…I just don’t know if this would be an appropriate course of action for the Vietnam tomahawk. Any suggestions you could provide would be most appreciated…just bear in mind that my mechanical skills are extremely limited ;). Thanks for your help…

Jim
 
You need to get a hammer and a punch and hammer down on the wedge.The wedge is the metal piece that splits the wood and keeps the head tight.Look at the very top of your tomahawk and you should notice a metal piece running across , drive it farther down with a hammer and punch, this will further wedge the head of your tomahawk to the wood.I have to do this all the time with my tomahawk, I use mine really hard.

hope this helped let me know if you have any questions
 
Following the instructions above for soaking it is the BEST was to fix a slightly loose head. The handles still have about 18% water and depending on your climate, if it's really dry, you make have to soak it every once in a while to tighten it up.

Let me know if you have any more trouble with it. :)
 
Thanks for the info, folks...that's exactly what I was looking for. Soaking the 'hawk sounds like the way to go. Now if I could just figure out why my attempts at using the search feature didn't point to that thread :confused:...I thought I tried almost every permutation of head, loose, looseness, etc. but I could never find it. It may be a case-sensitivity thing...;)
 
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