This weekend, I had my mind set on a project I had found on anvilfire.com. As one can tell from most of my recent posts, I've contracted a mild to moderate form of ax-forging fever. I can assure you, it is one of the best illnesses one can contract. Previously I had tried to make a few knives out of spikes that did not work out. I had heard of people making hatchets and tomahawks out of railroad spikes from my good friend Heath, but that was the extent of the matter.
I stumbled across a step by step guide to forging an ax out of a railroad spike, written by Bill Epps. It can be found here. I had meant to take pictures of this process step by step... but my phone was dead and so I will post a step by step process supplemented by photos later on.
I was really excited to do this project, because it was going to require Wayne and I to use tools that I had never used before. I had split metal, but never split an eye on something before, nor had I really used a drawing block on an anvil. I usually used the horn or some other fashion of drawing. So, we started the process by, like Mr. Epps states in his walkthrough, upsetting the tip of the spike. Upsetting is a nifty technique, being able to thicken the metal where you need to, especially if you know how to control your heat. I should note here: before you start this, forage around and find some good tongs to hold onto spikes with. None of ours really fit well nor were we able to make some this weekend. Luckily, we had some that worked, but one person had to hold the tongs and spike while the other hammered.
Once you have the spike upset to a little shy of 1'x1' inch square, it's time to move on to the punching and drawing of the eye for the handle. We used this set of punches: Big Blu - we punched most of the way through on one side, then moved to the other side, finding our hole by the "black dot" that forms when punching through something. High heat seems to be key, here. You're just going to wear yourself out if you do not have a high heat on your spike (or you'll wear your punch out and dull your tip). Once we were able to get that through on both sides, we then moved on to widening the hole. As mentioned by Mr. Epps, the key is to open the eye ALMOST to the perfect size, then shape the blade portion, and once your blade shape is done, then finish the eye. Your eye will distort (as we found out, quite considerably) as you shape the blade.
Now, on to the blade portion of the project. The guide states that thin is not a bad thing. If a tomahawk blade is being forged, this is true. A thicker blade won't still in much. My last ax I forged, intended to be a little kindling/forging ax (as can been seen through previous posts) is pretty well utterly useless, as it is too thick to do anything with, despite the decent edge I put on it. I started with a fullering hardy, the one shaped like a Pringles can cut in half longways. I widened it out a bit on both sides, and then moved to the crosspeen side of my hammer to fan it out and thin it more. Now, here's where the variation of our project turns away from Mr. Epps. Once I had the blade fanned out a bit, I hammered the top of the blade down, to where the ax started to take on a bearded look. I then moved on to a rounding hammer because I wanted to really thin the blade and have the rounded hammer blow texture to the blade. I thinned the ax blade quite considerably, I'd say down to a little less than 1/4'', and that really seemed to be needed in order to get the length and shape needed for the head. I think it's really important to mention the working of the metal with the rounding hammer, here. With the 36oz Diamond Rounding hammer, I was focusing on drawing the blade in the shape I needed. I was drawing the blade toward me with glancing blows. I wasn't killing it, I was taking my time and care in my hammer blows.
After the blade was shaped, I finished shaping the eye with a handle mounted mandrel, and then let it cool. I left this rough, I did not want to polish the whole thing because I like a rough look on my work. This thing was hand made, I want it to represent being hand made (besides, it's an ax. It will be slammed into tree stumps... and zombies if that ever comes to pass). Mildly sharpen it by file and thin the edge a bit more, and you're ready to harden, temper, and hone. I heated the cutting edge up to cherry red and then quenched into used motor oil. I then cleaned it up with some emery cloth so the edge was relatively clean of the oil residue and slag. That's important, the clean up, because you have to see your color for tempering. I held the edge on the outside of the forge, where some of the fire, or "dragons breath" was coming out of the ports, and watched the colors dance across the ax edge. I watched it turn yellow, gold, blue, purple, and then between a purple and peacock blue, yanked it away and quench back in oil. Many will quench in water for the second quench... but I'm scared to for fear of cracking. So I'll hit it in oil again. Clean it up, sharpen it, whittle or buy your handle, mount it, and wedge it and you're ready to go. I carved the handle on this the same as I did Kindling (see previous posts) out of a 1.5in sq board of red oak with a draw knife. If you get the hardening and tempering right (which I think I did. Time will tell) along with thinning your blade enough, this baby will take an edge quick and hold it.
Here's some pictures. Happy hammering!
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