Nose to the grindstone. Well, 'hawks to the belt grinder. :)

Stormcrow

Stormcrow

Well-Known Member
I've finally got the ball rolling on everything and am working on the first batch of tomahawks since getting my new heat treatment furnace set up. I'm first working on taking care of military orders, then will work on the rest in order.

Here's the first batch of five. I plan on working on six at a time in the future, but I wanted to get these finished and to the customers ASAP.



All of them have sharpened inner beards except the second hammer poll from the left. I know some of them are hard to see in the pic. It was taken under fluorescent lights at night in my shop.

Here they are on the combination tempering/coating baking rack in the big 3 phase kiln that I use for such operations. At this point, they've been normalized, ground, and hardened.



And the two heat treatment devices side-by-side. The new furnace, dedicated to the hardening phase, is on the right. The 3 phase kiln, dedicated to tempering and baking on the finish, is on the left. The first tempering cycle is just starting and the kiln isn't up to temp yet.



The rack I use for normalizing is to the right of the furnace, with only one foot visible. The quench tank is just out of the shot on the right and forward.

Also, after wrestling with the idea for a while, I've decided to name my models. Model names for blades can get really gimmicky for some folks, but I wanted something straightforward that would be evocative of the intended use.

So, I chose War Chief, Wrecker, and Woodsman.

War Chief (combat spike) on the left, Wrecker (pry spike) on the right.



And Woodsman (hammer poll):



I have a pretty good handful of orders to get made, and should start putting up some finished pictures in the next few days, all going well. :)
 
Thanks!

I'm using Durabake. So far it's seeming to do all right, but any coating will come off with usage over time.
 
Got this batch Durabaked today.

I need to build a better spraying setup, but I rigged this up as a temporary solution and it did all right.



Everyone in this batch wanted black, except one.



About to bake in the kiln.



Cooling off afterwards on the normalizing rack.



And the whole heat treatment setup. Three phase kiln on the left used for tempering and baking on the finish, Evenheat used for hardening to the right of that, normalizing rack to the right of that, tomahawk quench oil in the black barrel, and canola oil for quenching bush swords in the square tube quench tank.



Tomorrow the plan is to get Micarta sheets sandblasted and cut up, and possibly shaped into slabs and on the 'hawks.

I also shot a little video showing durability in response to a handful of people who have asked me about if the top rivet hole on the short 'hawks is a weak spot. The video is uploading and I'll post it when finished.
 
Here we go, whacking on the handle with a six pound sledgehammer to check the strength of a spot a couple of folks had thought might be a weak point, then chopping a nail.

[video=youtube;S9DyU-W4tK0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9DyU-W4tK0[/video]

This isn't a demolition edge, either, it's a wood chopping edge. What can I say, I love 4140! :)
 
I got Micarta sheets sandblasted and cut into manageable sizes today. I also cut the slabs for this batch, though I haven't shaped them yet, and cut the stainless steel tube rivets. More pics tomorrow.
 
Nothing says you stand behind your product like a demo video!
Although it is great to show your clients what it will do I'm glad you
Made the disclaimer that this shouldn't be done.

very nice design and from the way it performs looks like you have the HT spot on!

Curious how you like the bake finish you are using now. have you tried others before you came to this one?

Thanks and God Bless
Mike
 
Mike - I'm fairly happy with Durabake at the moment, but will continue to look into coatings and see what my best options are. Any coating will wear with use, and I'm not expecting indestructability on the finish of a 'hawk that's put through its paces. I was surprised at how well the Krylon I used on the prototypes held up cutting through sheet metal and such. Durabake was the next thing for me to try, to a large extent because most of the cold coating products I looked at listed a long cure time. With this, you bake it for 15 minutes and let it cool and it's good.
 
It was a short day, but I got some good things done.

Micarta sheets after sandblasting and before being cut up on my table saw. The bottom sheet with the cutouts is 1/4" mild steel, used to make some tooling.



After cutting into handle slabs, I used my handle template to drill the rivet holes.



There are always little tricks to any process. After a while, I figured out how to drill the holes without having to shift the C-clamps each time, and drilled two slabs at once.



Then I countersunk the holes.



Then I bolted the handle template to the individual slabs and used a trim bit on a router to trim, obviously. :)



Followed by a 45 degree bevel using the other router.





The handle template is built so that the Micarta is trimmed leaving the butt of the tang exposed, providing an extra impact surface and protecting the Micaarta from damage if someone should do something like, oh, throw the darn thing.



Tomorrow I'll round the edges of the bevels, rivet the handles on, and sharpen, all going well. If I pop my coat tails, I could probably do some sheaths too.
 
This batch has all been finished up and are on their way to their respective customers. Here's a brief glance as they were waiting for sheaths to be built:



I'll post the finished pics in their own threads. I don't plan to document all the batches of 'hawks like I did this one, but I wanted to show some of the steps along the way.

Now onto the next batch!



This is a big one as there are two double orders and one of the long Wreckers is going to be a demonstration model for myself. About half of the grinding is already done. This pic shows them all post-normalizing.
 
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