W2 Forged Integral Hawk WIP (FINAL PICTURES)

ScottRoush

ScottRoush

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Jan 10, 2010
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I had some requests to look into doing a forged full tang hawk. I haven't done it before.. but I have some steel that will work so I thought I would give it a try and do a little WIP while I'm at it. It may just end up being an embarrassing mess but we should all learn from it right? I picked up a 12 x 2 x 1 piece of W2 at the Madison Fall show so I thought I would try that out. It definitely has the mass I need for this.. I just have to move it all in the right direction.

Well all I had time for this morning was to weld on the handle. ;) More later....

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I dunno, it looks like a mighty fine weapon as is. I certainly wouldn't want to get whacked with it :eek:

I can't wait to see what happens with this. Subscribed
 
I actually got quite a bit done this morning.. but haven't processed the images yet. Tomorrow morning. That chunk forged really nice under the press. It's actually 2" thick.. not 1". I'm gonna have to see I can get W2 in plates instead of bars. I'm sure Winkler is water jetting his Sayocs!
 
I actually got quite a bit done this morning.. but haven't processed the images yet. Tomorrow morning. That chunk forged really nice under the press. It's actually 2" thick.. not 1". I'm gonna have to see I can get W2 in plates instead of bars. I'm sure Winkler is water jetting his Sayocs!
 
okay. Here is the chunk going into my vertical blown forge:

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First thing to do is fuller out the end to get the length of the head. In retrospect, I should have upset it first... but I really didn't think I needed to.. and it would have been a bit of a daunting task to boot. I think I will get what I need anyway. Here it is going into the press with my drawing dies. With my C-frame I can come in from the side to fuller.

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First fuller:

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After a couple heat doing that action.. it goes to the flattening dies:

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So that was the majority of what was done here... drawing dies, then flattening dies:

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Starting to draw out the handle:

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Getting too wide for my forge! Had to switch to my horizontal welding forge:

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Using the hammer to help draw out what will be the spike:

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And I stopped here. This may be going to a customer so I want to get some feedback on profile, etc. It's about 1/4" right now.. so still some meat to get more out of it. I will probably use the angle grinder a bit to make it easier to forge down and draw out the spike. I MAY end up laminating stainless steel to just the head... and I'm still pondering how best to do that and still get a clean transition into the handle.

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Feel free to comment and criticize. I'm sure there is an easier way to do this... but most times I learn better just by losing all fear and trepidation and just throw it in the forge. Hope to do more today.. but it's the last day of muzzleloader season and still no venison.
 
Scott,just laminate the stainless down far enoungh on the haft so the transition will be covered by the handle material.Looks good so far BTW,but cutting the profile from a large plate then forging down the edge would have bee a far less daunting task:D
 
I absolutely agree John. I was just looking at Aldo's site at his 5" wide, 5/16" W2 stock. As to the laminate.... I was thinking the same thing.. I just need some stainless wide enough...
 
Get the 5" wide stock and cut your heads and partial tang down the length of the bar, then weld on the rest of the tang out of mild steel, making the joint fall beneath the handle material.As far as wide stainless, go to a scrap yard and find a discarded stainless steel fridge.These are usually covered in 304.
 
interesting on the stainless fridges. problem is... finding a stainless fridge in the middle of the most depopulated county in the lower 48! but I will keep my eye out. that's a good idea on the partial tang as it would save some good tool steel... but might be hard to hide the joint on the spine as well as forge out the distal taper I'm planning on. Anyway... Aldo is gonna hook me up. He has W2 plate that will work for me. He is indeed the Man.
 
What makes W2 your choice for this? I have very little experience in steel, but from the little I have read W2 is not as tough as some other steels. I could be wrong, just asking.
 
Well I used W2 for this particular one because it was the only thing I had in house size-wise that could be forged into a full tang hawk. But W2 is one of my favorite steels for both performance.. and the fact that it shows one hell of a hamon. There really isn't that much difference between W2 and 1095.. other than some alloys. It IS a tool steel remember. The high carbon content of W2 also makes it a good choice when laminating to stainless in terms of carbon migration. 5160 may be a bit tougher ... but... I wouldn't expect to see huge differences in real life performance testing. But if I start doing these on a regular basis, I'm not sure what I will get yet. I like the idea of making these with real active hamons.. just because it isn't something you see that often and I think it would look wicked on a tactical tomahawk. Aldo's vanadium 1084 would probably be the most sensible choice for me.. especially since I'm better set up for heat treating shallow hardening steels.
 
Okay got some more done today.. and it is now on the very edge of success or failure. Which way will the balance tip? I will find out tonight after the kids are asleep. I've been wavering as to whether or not I should attempt to laminate the head with stainless and I finally just committed to it. See below...

After forging I wanted to do some angle grinding to speed things up and help sweeten the profile for further forging to shape. Ignore the drawn out lines as, you will see, they eventually don't mean much.

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This next picture was taken after I finally committed to the idea of doing this as a stainless laminated blade. So I basically ground it for a clean fit with my 2" wide, 1/8" 304 stainless. All surfaces ground flat and clean as well as shaping of the 304. You can see the sketch of what I'm hoping to make from this... but much will depend on how the forge welding goes. The idea is that the design will allow a nice comfy spot to hold your hand for choking up and doing detail work with the blade. This design will probably alter as the shape comes into fruition and I've had a chance to check it for comfort/ease of use. The picture also shows the brown canvas micarta and some horse mat recycled rubber that I'm considering for handle material.

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To prepare for forge welding the 304, like I said above.. all surfaces must be free of scale and completely flat. This time I wiped the surfaces down with WD40 for both cleaning and to leave some hydrocarbon residue on the surfaces that will eat up any oxygen that makes it's way in. Oxygen is the devil when it comes to forge welding stainless to high carbon. Any scaling at all will prevent the weld. The parts are then clamped tightly together using my vise and c-clamps and a bead from my $100 wire feed welder is drawn around all mated surfaces leaving a little pin hole for the escape of gasses. Before the weld was complete I sprayed a bit more WD40 in. This is the first time I've done this. I've always known that people did it.. but I never had problems welding 416. But since I've started also using 304, I've had a couple of failures so I'm hoping this is some insurance.

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Now.. you can see that I will an 1/8" of stainless rising above the high carbon tang. The plan is to clean that joint up so that my handle scales can be placed so as to fit right up against the stainless.

Well right now the billet is sitting out in the shop cooling off and I have to go pick the kids up from daycare wondering if those stainless plates will ping right off when I grind off the welds. When stainless welding fails... it really fails.
 
The sketch looks great. I love, love, love the spike, and the main bit looks good too. For my personal aesthetic, I could stand to see the cut out radiused further toward the edge, but it still looks great as is.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your welds ;)


Also, thank you for the info on W2 :thumbup:
 
Scott,

You might want a generous distance between the mid-line of the neck and the starting point of beard.
That way during choke-up the operator will not cut his fingers on impact.

On the full tang axe, is it made entirely out of W2 or W2 for the head and 5160 for the "haft"?

Stay warm and safe!

J
 
JayGoliath said:
Scott,

You might want a generous distance between the mid-line of the neck and the starting point of beard.
That way during choke-up the operator will not cut his fingers on impact.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about that as well. It could also lead to bad things if the hawk is twisted while the finger is in there
 
yeah guys.... I do better with sketching a starting point and then tweaking when a rough version is in my hand. There would certainly be more clearance. On something like this, my method is usually thus: make a rough profile, go out to wood pile and chop like a mad man, go back to the shop, make a profile change, go back to the woodpile etc.

The full tang in this thread is all a single piece of W2 with the two plates of 304 stainless that I'm attempting to forge weld on. Which brings up an update.... One side of the stainless completely delaminated off this morning. This has been happening a lot since I've started using 304... and my only guess is that since it is only 1/8" stock... the pieces are just getting the heat sucked out before welding takes place. It looks like the other side took... so I'm hoping it will be possible to re-weld the other side. If not... then this project has failed since my W2 core will be too thin without the stainless. Or... I just made myself a full tang axe with stainless on only one side. An art piece right??? It's funny how all my own knives and axes have something wrong with them!?
 
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