Guest guest T Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 I have been reading the viking age axe tutorial thread and it gave me a bit of axe fever. Unfortunatly, it is a bit beyond my toolset to make an axe so I decided to try just forg welding a flat bar into a rough tomahawk. It is solid leaf spring with no bit which as Mr. Alan once said is not ideal due to the weld line on the edge. That is okay because something tells me I won't be using it for any heavy chopping. The weld lines are visible but I I am still happy considering it is my first (real) attempt to forgeweld and I did not really have any proper blacksmithing tools except a hammer (not even a mandrel to shape the eye); I just wrapped it around a round bar to start before welding. It is about 3 inches long in total and has a 1 inch edge A few things that I am going to do differently next time: 1 make sure that the faces being welded are clean, 2 weld a bit in and focus on welding the edge and eye well, 3 possibly a full sized wrapped tomahawk... Link to post Share on other sites
Alan Longmire 2,740 Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Not bad for a first! Go bigger, you know you want to... Link to post Share on other sites
Don Abbott 115 Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 I was cleaning up my shop last week and found one almost identical to yours that I had made many years ago. You are doing a good thing by starting small and learning one step at a time. You really did a good job on that. I agree with #1... I always try to grind my surfaces before welding if it's possible. When you try #2, be sure to forge and/or grind that bit to paper thin on the edge. Even the thickness of a dime will cause gap problems. And for #3, just rememeber that you'll need to multiply your ability to make heat as the size of your work grows. You can't fake welding heat. If you come up short and try it anyway, you'll usually ruin your weld. Again, great work. Keep at it. Link to post Share on other sites
Phil Ullrich 22 Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Nice work Tre. At the Alamo museum in San Antonio there is an old tomahawk head no more than that size. Link to post Share on other sites
Carl Brill 0 Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Nice! Link to post Share on other sites
Krateros 11 Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 realy nice for a first! Link to post Share on other sites
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