What should I forge?

[phantomknives]

so i got this pittsburg 3 pounder (i think) from the horror fright (harbor freight) about 5-6 years ago and I lost it, then recovered it with the lawn mower a year later. i chucked it in a sand bag to anneal and forgot about it.

recently i dug my forge out and started working again, what pattern do you think would suit this material.

i'm thinking ice axe

 

[A17]

Pickaroon/axe combo?

 

[jake pogg]

Fairly central feature in design of any handled tool is it's eye.

The trouble with re-forging an existing head is that your modifications of the eye will be quite limited.So i'd base any ideas on the modification on that,what type of eye will(can) you end up with.

I'd also consider starting with the eye,which will mean coming up with a drift for either retaining the existing form or whatever modification you'll wish to introduce.

"Air-forging" the entire head(without the use of drift/mandrel) is possible,but quite challenging.

So yep,i'd base my planning on starting with the potential eye issues.

Also,if there'll be any trimming of the material i'd save any and all cut-offs for HT experiments,it really helps to do a trial run.

Best of luck,and good forging.

 

[jake pogg]

P.S.

There's a significant,material difference between hatchets with a "full"(for lack of more accurate term)depth of eye,and those with a contracted,more hammer-like depth.

Many hammer-polled axes,like half-,lathing,roofing and the like,have a shallower/shorter eye;more like what you have on your ball-pein there than a more conventional axe-eye.

I'd caution you against trying convert this to any design that'd require you to draw that eye down to any greater depth...contracting the depth/height of eye to a hammer-poll is usually a non-reverseable process...

 

[phantomknives]

Fairly central feature in design of any handled tool is it's eye.

The trouble with re-forging an existing head is that your modifications of the eye will be quite limited.So i'd base any ideas on the modification on that,what type of eye will(can) you end up with.

I'd also consider starting with the eye,which will mean coming up with a drift for either retaining the existing form or whatever modification you'll wish to introduce.

"Air-forging" the entire head(without the use of drift/mandrel) is possible,but quite challenging.

So yep,i'd base my planning on starting with the potential eye issues.

Also,if there'll be any trimming of the material i'd save any and all cut-offs for HT experiments,it really helps to do a trial run.

Best of luck,and good forging.

i appreciate your thoughts.

i have a bunch of rail road iron, included with that is a lock pin that i plan to make into an axe eye drift. it's a good thing i moved one of my 18 pounders out to the forge to move it. as for the head, it's got plenty of material to move one way. i can make it deeper or i can draw it into an axe eye similar to a hudson bay.

this is just about what i'm going for due to it's similarity, unless someone has better ideas

 

[A Visitor]

Three pounds is a big hammer. I've forged some 24 ounce heads into tomahawks, Used a drift for a slip on handle. Drift and handles as available on-line.