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Why Cold Steel!?!?Why??

As others have mentioned, runout of the grain is what's responsible here. That and throwing is gonna' bust even the best handles eventually.
 
I just put got in from making this crude but temporary handle. It's still wet so i need to dry it, but the head isn't goin anywhere. I'm not quite sure what kind of wood it is. with no leaves on trees i can't really tell. I also said that about the one i made earlier today. That one broke. we'll see how this one goes!

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Bo T said:
Get some wood glue and rawhide and you can make it better than new.
Click to expand...
I know that lots of glue manufacturers claim their mended joints are stronger than the wood itself but I've never known this to be true in real life. Wood that's stress broken can never again be trusted to remain whole. If you seriously want to experiment try this on a lathe-turned baseball bat. The wood broke for a grain orientation reason and no amount of glue is ever going to rectify that!
 
I like to get the ash handles that Crazy Crow offers. They are cheap, attractive and durable. But I have been throwing hawks for over 40 years now and wouldn't think of throwing one without wrapping the upper 8" of handle first. I was watching a guy renting axes out for throwing about 25 years ago at a highland games and these things were taking some terrible abuse from guys that had never thrown in their lives. Every hawk was wrapped from the head down about 8" with thick, ugly, dirty duct tape (red I recall) about 3/16" thick. I immediately went home and made some stitched, attractive thick leather slip on sleeves to slip up my axe to the head, about the same thickness as that duct tape. I have used these for many years in public. Take them off when showing off the axe and slide them on to throw it in competition. Or you can decorate the leather with Celtic designs or something and just leave them on all the time. Axes that are always thrown at home for practice may just be wrapped all the time with paracord held in place with tape or shoe goo. The reason this works is the heavier a hawk head is (and this is a heavy one you are using) the more likely it is to break when it strikes a target just south of the head. In other words, if you throw high, the head misses and all the momentum of the head is spent when the handle just below the head strikes the top edge of the target. Same happens on targets side with a slightly missed side-hand throw. About 90% of all breaks happen within 4" of head for this reason. Here are the paracord wraps on some of my practice throwers. These handles are over 10 years old and are thrown several times per week. Note these wraps are there permanently. I use a squirt of shoe-goo under the cord so it doesn't move and tape over each end to keep it in place. It is an easy thing to pull the cord free and rewrap whenever necessary. The wrap prevents handle breakage, will also help prevent splitting one hawk with another if you are prone to throw several at one target (which I don't) and gives a good choke-up grip for certain wood crafts. I have given all my slip on leather ones away but would be happy to stitch one up if anyone is interested and wants to see how they look.



 
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That right there might have been your issue then. I sat down with my mora, and some sandpaper and made it fit. IT also helps to take a small file and bevel inside the eye so the sharp edges don't dig into the wood.
 
You need to work on the fit for sure. I would personally also avoid using any set screws Cold Steel supplied. They tend to have these in their hawk heads but they can start a split. You have to carry around an allen wrench to remove them and removing the head can be a good thing. If the head is fitted well it won't move much. It also helps to put something that increases friction (again like shoe goo) on the haft under the head. I like that stuff because peels off and doesn't effect the handle at all. The slip on will greatly reduce damage and shock to the head but no, it will not prevent the head from slipping down. The slip-on's are just friction fit tight. If they get loose get them wet and lay them out in the sun for a day and they just tighten back up. I had a few minutes this morning so just stitched up a leather one for you to see. It took less than thirty minutes, started out as an old boot top and I didn't even bother to keep my seam straight. But it will work fine, look woodsy and protect this hawk. I made the hawk head at my forge about 1983 and I have thrown it thousands of times. It has had three handles that I can recall in all that time.







The axe you have chosen is the heaviest hawk head Cold Steel makes. I like it for camp work and the hammer poll but because it is so heavy, it develops more momentum than the Norse axe or the Frontier Hawk head when thrown. That means more damage to the handles and more handle slippage if you hit on the base of the handle shaft. It is also desirable to be able to easily slip the head for certain chores around camp. My wife carries a Cold Steel Norse axe. It is super light and easy to keep sharp as a knife blade. I often don't even tote a knife if I have a good sharp axe. Just slip the head and it can be used for most knife chores since it becomes an Ulu.
 
Be sure to turn the seam toward the front of the axe. That is the thickest and most protective part of the slip-on. It needs to be where it will protect the best. Also, if you decide to make your own handles and are into the whole correct grain orientation thing, try some good hard and dry holly. It grows naturally in straight lengths that can be cut when it is just too large for a handle. Put them up to dry for a year and you will have some hard and tough handles! My wife has me out there cutting that stuff every year and we just decided to save a few for walking sticks about 20 years ago. After drying, we could not bend them or break them at all (they were about 1" diameter and 6 feet long). Since then I have used them for spear shafts, hawk handles and even some very strong bow staves.
 
I would recommend it for any hawk. If you are just going to practice with it and use it around the house, I'd use cord wrap. But if it is going to the woods with you and be seen by others, a slip is great. Again, you can take it off when not throwing if you like or decorate and leave it on. I think the cord is maybe a bit more protective but the slips look right for most axe throwing historical periods. Just use fairly heavy leather and whatever you stitch it with needs to look period. For instance I used artificial sinew on the one above. I've stitched them lots of times with dental floss and used brown shoe polish and a brush to make them look more acceptable.
 
By the way, my old Cold Steel war hammer and my Danish War Axe got new hafts today. I am bad about using my war hammer in the winter to help with my firewood. Just hit the spike into one side of the log, use the long handle as a lever to flip the log and the hammer becomes the fulcrum so that you can chainsaw easily by yourself. Not too many barbarians around to use the hammer on so this is my main use for it. I think I bought this whenever they came out many (?) years ago. This year I finally rolled a locust tree that was just too much for the hammer haft. You notice I have the head on upside down. The eye is tapered so it is easier to get a heavy duty handle in place that way.. And we are generally not using the hook to pull folks from horses these days. So the hook works better for my purposes turned up.

 
Evil-looking implement you've got there. Not difficult to see how ululus (Inuit skin fleshing tools) came about. One way cuts the other scrapes.
 
I didn't see it listed earlier, but IA Woodsman has a video posted of making new handle for his CS trail hawk using only the head. It's a short video, but pretty much shows how easily it can be done if you avoid some of the easy mistakes people make (like trimming it too short or trying to make an exact fit without much testing of it).
Here's the video:

[video=youtube;6pvv97vPLHk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pvv97vPLHk[/video]

C
 
I just got 2 CS hawks and one has the grain running the wrong way. Gonna work on my own custom handle this weekend for when the factory one breaks.
 
My trail hawk's handle has a pretty bad grain runout, but it's withstood much throwing and chopping so I might just be lucky.
 
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