Josh A Weston

I've been using the Jen-Ken Kilns Vertical Airbath kiln. It's different from Paragon and Evenheat standard kilns as it loads from the top and you suspend your pieces. I have seen a significant reduction in warpage with this kiln. I have a 24" Paragon and a 30" Jen Ken and I've tested same blades in different ovens and have found that the Jen Ken does a better job of reducing warps in the quench. If you want more info on them I have a link: shorturl.at/dfqF7 to some of their products. They are very competitively priced.

It's leather and I molded it to shape by wet forming. Took about a day to get it like that, little water, molding and in and out of the oven on low heat.

Oh yeah, I remember seeing the post(s) you made of that order. That was a lot of work. Turned out beautifully too. My machinist uncle made a new jig based loosely and more simply off the idea I posed earlier. He is on his way down from PA to help me try it out. Fingers crossed over the next couple days.

This has crossed my mind and it may just be the best solution. It would be fairly easy welds to get consistently and sure would save me from a lot of upsetting work.

It's not so much that you upset it to draw it back out to the same dimensions... it's more that upsetting it allows a more fluid transition to make a supported beard type with more graceful lines. When forged back to 7" it is quite thin in the upper cross section so that I can pull that full body down.

Here is a sketch I made that I sort of animated by moving stuff around. Thoughts? pressconcept2_small.mov

What is Ray's method? I have tried just spreading a spike without upsetting and while you can get a wedge tomahawk it's not a very wide spread and certainly not bearded. I do not like the bent tip and drawn either... that's more personal preference though.

This is a great thought! I think I may have to try this. Yeah, the press really sucks the heat out of the head.

That's an interesting idea. I haven't quite tried that yet.

I have an opportunity to mass sell my railspike tomahawks with a distributor. For me to make the wholesale price worth it I will have to apply some press and jig forging. I have all but one press jig solved. I need a way to quickly upset a 6" spike from 6" down to 4"... I would settle for 4.5". I've made about 5 failed jigs now. Years ago (6-8) I saw a video of a guy that was doing this but I can't find the video and I can't remember any details very clearly. Does anyone have any ideas?! I have a week and a half to solve this problem to get the work. I need some help, please! You can see one of my failed ideas here: https://www.instagram.com/joshaweston/ This is my current by hand process: and the main format I follow: https://rashystreakers.tumblr.com/post/107518033964/how-to-forge-a-railroad-spike-axe-by-thepxsmith Thanks, Josh

Beautiful piece! What's the final weight on that?

Excellent thread! Very nice work.

Small world! I spent almost a whole day in that museum. I want to go back and measure all of these. Here is a shot of the info card but it was not very helpful for measurements. Thanks for posting what you have. That will help to get some proportions right for the next one.

You know what, I didn't actually measure it. I was going for as close to a full flat as possible. I will have to measure the thickness of the cutting edge, which I left a little thick and convex. But the blade is 2" wide at the base with a flat grind from spine to the edge bevel. It's a pretty sweet design, I am looking forward to making more of them. Oh, and the sheath is just leather. I molded it with a sharpie end and a polished antler tine. Takes a bit of time but with the aid of some clamps, water and a heat gun it can happen.

At least one of the seax guys said seax inspired, but it drives me so nutso when they say "Viking Seax" and it's clearly Anglo Saxon and even then it's more of a bowie... oh well