I did extensive research on historic spike tomahawks which drove our modern ergonomic designs, including talking with experts like Mark Miller and Jack Vargo and reading many historic accounts. The true purpose of the different styles of spike were never stated, so there was only speculation from collectors. I did a lot of hands on experiments and quickly discovered there are a lot of counter-intuitive but brutally effective techniques packed into these feather light weapons. As things firm up I may do some combative posts down the road.
The Empress Tomahawks use high strength silicon bronze for several reasons. Folks think "well, bronze is softer than steel, so why bronze?"
----- Bronze is harder the flesh and bone. Thousand and thousands of men have been slain by bronze blades and today, the modern bronze we use in the Empress tomahawk is even high strength than the historic blades.
----- Bronze is not brittle. During the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age, if bronze blades were subjected to too high of load the blade would bend and there were accounts of warriors straightening the blades via cold working in the field. I verified this by clobbering a prototype Empress into solid concrete. The blade bent and I had it straightened in a vise in seconds. Some file work and a dab of patina had it looking good and it was back to in skull piercing shape. When you subject a high hardness tool steel blade to too much structural load, it breaks.
----- We also had a lot of interest in a concealable tomahawk at a more accessible price point than our Backripper tomahawk. The Backripper costs $305 because it's hand forged from W1 tool steel and properly fitted on a straight grain hickory handle--the head and handle are our own design. The Empress is $195 because it's sand casted silicon bronze. In time it will costs less to make, but it actually requires a lot more money up front (the investment in the mold cost thousands of dollars) and it will always require way more of our time. We get our Backripper heads from the blacksmith, ready to hang on the handle--we pay him for the materials and the skill to hand forge and finish the heads in this excellent condition. But the Empress heads come from sand casting requiring a lot of hand filing and sharpening, surface texturing and patina to get the form and function we desire in our quality products, all before being properly hung on a straight grain hickory handle. Still, we successfully achieved a more accessible price point. We have confidence that, with time, enough customers were get their Empress to help us pay off the steep up front cost.
----- The Empress has a very clean, simple arc to the side profile that makes it look very attractive but actually is an intersection of very complex shapes that can easily lose it's attractive appearance with seemingly minor dimensional variability. Very, very difficult to get a clean, simple look. A lot more time consuming and expensive to forge and way more careful on the stock removal afterwards--we estimate a steel version would cost more than $400. Quality is everything! But you gotta pay for that increase in time it takes to make it! So you can see another reason we went with Bronze--we can sand cast a consistent shape that gets the perfect look. Hand forging is GREAT, but it is too variable when we want such a tight look.
---- Also, bronze is 100% rust proof, and folks in the military commented it'd be nice to have a compact tomahawk that they could expose to salt water without issues. And I enjoy the beach and carrying quality blades, yet don't want to rust a steel edge. So if you want a blade to take on a day at the beach, this will do just fine. Tucks in your swimming trucks, no problem. Even the wood is specifically treated to be water resistant and we've tested this entire assembled tomahawk underwater. Hell, it even chops fast underwater!
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