Anthony Reid

Daniel, I say go for it! This started as 4in of 1x2 hot rolled mild steel and finished at 1-3/4 lb I have another one in the works that has been drifted and rough forged starting with 4-1/4in of the same material that is still just above 2-1/4lbs so i would say depending on your target weight maybe try a piece 1×2.5 ×4in ish ? I usually figure .288lb per cubic inch for steel it's usually close but no substitute for weighing your stock before you start. I make hatchets out of 1.25in square 1018 with a bit welded in and they usually come out in the 1-1/4 to 1-1/2lb range depending on grinding an

I am not familiar with that title but I love Patrick McManus I'll have to look for it .

Thanks Joshua, I used a piece of Damascus I had made a while back and there wasn't a lot of material to forge the bit from unless I restacked the bar . I had originally planned to etch with ferric and coffee to really show the pattern but I ended up just doing a deep ferric etch and leaving it at that as I worried that it wouldn't stay looking nice with use

this is the latest culmination of my experiments in axe making it is a 1-3/4lb head composed of mild steel body and 384 layer damascus cutting bit on a hand carved slender hickory handle. I am quite pleased with it I made it to be what i consider an ideal general purpose axe for camping and bushcraft : slightly bearded for fine crafting cuts, full wedge profile for splitting and throwing chips out of the cut when chopping, heavy poll to keep the cutting edge close to the center of gravity, 28in handle keeps it light and packable but allows maximum work to be done with a light head. the handle

thanks for the info Tim, I am familiar with the threads mentioned above from my previous research but will go over them again for sure! today I went to my local packaging supply to pick up some plastic buckets and lids for my wife as well as a metal pail for this project and ended up leaving with 2 30 gallon oil drums as well. I'm wondering now if I should stick to my original 5 gallon plan ala the "jizzer" or try the 30 gallon drum to be closer to the original Don Fogg design? I ordered a pyrometer and type k thermocouples with ceramic insulation tubes to protect them. I ordered 6 in long th

I've been using my ribbon burner forge for heat treating but it's really difficult to maintain temperature low enough to be appropriate for heat treating so it has become a bit of a dance and I have been thinking about other options. Something like the Don Fogg drum kiln appeals to me but I don't have room for anything that big. I took a look in the stickies and see that someone else has done something similar to what I am thinking of but I wanted to check in with you guys before I start just trying things. The basic outline of my idea is a 5 gallon metal pail lined with 1in of ka

Been slowly plugging away at some hatchets, I'm still struggling with the mild to mild weld in a wrapped eye axe but I've made a few slit and drift heads that turned out ok. I borrowed a technique I saw In A video on the new England school of metalwork YouTube channel I basically use a slitting chisel to pierce my starting stock and then forge down the eye section to the finished poll thickness which stretches the eye. Then reopen the slot and drift as normal. I have a buyer for the one in the first picture, my wife has claimed the second one and the unfinished one in the last picture had the

My second and 3rd attempt to make this style of wrap and weld hatchet both had issues with the welding so I bought a piece of 1/2x1.5 1018 which I cut into 9in lengths so I can try again with better material but I haven't had a chance to try that material yet . I did do some more work on a slit and drift head I have been working on though. This one I made with a 1inx2inx4in piece cut from mild steel plate and slit with a hot chisel and two 1/4in guide holes at the ends of the slot. I ended up with the eye a bit crooked as I worked to center the blade so I had to do some

I have tried a commercial Flux with metal bits in it I believe it was antiborax brand but it didn't work with this mild steel either I may have to break down and buy some known 1018 rather than this A36 as I've successfully welded 1018 in this forge before but the random mild steel I have just won't stick

Thanks guys, I will have to try the cast iron powder , I am a machinist by trade I could have saved some chips from the last cast iron job I did if I had any idea I would be wanting them later. Unfortunately I'm not working at the moment but I'll see what I can come up with. When using Flux with cast iron powder in it do you need to open the joint to apply the flux ? Borax wicks itself into the joint but it doesn't seem like that would pull in the powdered metal meaning it would have to be fluxed prior to the pieces being brought into position right? Would powdered steel like for canister Dama

¹This one is 5/16in thick an inch back from the edge so it could definitely be made thinner for sure. I'm going to try another one today and see if I can get closer to my ideal. I was just happy to get a functional head after all the trouble I've been having lately with punched eyes and trying to get mild to weld to mild in my gas forge... I may have to break out my solid fuel forge and try it with charcoal to see if that makes any difference in welding mild steel to itself.

I went with a flatter kind of symmetrical oval eye as a change of pace on this one and I think it will be a bit easier to make a handle for but that's just a theory I have. When you say wider and flatter towards the edge do you mean it should have a longer cutting edge and not be so thick behind the edge? I think I may try that on the next one , I stopped early on this one as I was worried my cutting edge would get too thin or possibly off center if I pushed it too far as I started with a piece that was around 5/32 thick so it got super thin quick! I did find that the length started to get awa

This little hatchet was today's project, it is actually the second version I made today as I had trouble with the first axe when the mild steel just would not weld to itself no matter what I did so the solution in this case was just to extend the blade steel all the way back to the eye. The body was forged from 9in of 1/2"×1.5" basically following the Gerald Boggs article and I used a left over piece of low layer pattern welded steel for the cutting bit. I had to make a new drift for this project as well. So the next one should go quicker. I'm still debating whether I should flatten the top p

Thanks for the info Alan, you may be right about the forge atmosphere I had it running about like I do for Damascus with a bit of dragons breath out the front of my ribbon burner forge but I did have my air gate a bit further open than usual. (I built a diverter blast gate between the blower and the ribbon burner) Do you have a picture of your punch /slitter ? Drifting that hatchet eye from essentially a hammer eye punch hole to a 1.5x.5 axe eye took probably 10 heats ...it got quicker when I figured out how to do it at the anvil rather than using the post vise as a bolster but it

I recently added a 33lb anyang air hammer to my shop and have been working toward some projects that I was disinclined to attempt when I had to do everything by hand. One of the things I've been interested in pretty much forever is axes I've made a few tomahawks over the years but now I'm turning my attention to proper axes. This afternoon I forged out this tiny hatchet head . It started as a 2x3x3/4inch piece of 4140 which I punched and drifted with tools I made for this project . My main issue was with the eye the punching went ok except that my punch seemed to stick in the part and took so