Hello to all lovers of working with hot steel, today we will consider how to forge an excellent tomahawk from a railway crutch. This hatchet looks gorgeous and it is very convenient in everyday life. With this hatchet you can chop firewood, make grooves in logs, chop shoots and much more. The author used a piece of carbon steel as a blade, as a result, he managed to sharpen the ax to a razor state, the author cuts paper with an ax. Of course, thanks to strong steel, the blade will not be blunt for a long time. If you are interested in the project, I propose to study it in more detail!
Materials and tools used by the author:
Material List:
- railway crutch;
- a piece of a flat old file (or other steel);
- a piece of branch or a bar for the handle;
- coin for a decorative ring;
- oil or other impregnation for wood.
Tool List:
- lathe;
- oven and blacksmith tool;
- oil for hardening;
- polishing machine;
- belt grinding machine;
- drill.
Tomahawk manufacturing process:
Step one. Forging
First of all, we heat up the crutch, we need to make a hole under the handle, this lesson will take the most time. The author enlarges the hole gradually using different wedges. To form a round hole, the author made a special wedge from a large-diameter bolt.
We also form the part of the ax where the blade will be located. After forging, it will be necessary to normalize the steel so that no deformation occurs.
Step Two A pen
The author has carved a pen from a branch, you will need the most even piece of wood. Well, then we remove the excess from the lathe, and grind the stick to a perfectly smooth state.
Step Three Blade
The crutch itself is made of not very high quality steel, so the blade from such a metal will quickly become dull. For the blade, we need a piece of the old flat file, before making it, break the file and make sure that the metal has a uniform gray color.Such a file is entirely made of carbon steel, and modern files only cement outside.
Cut off the desired piece of file and weld it to the ax. We carefully clean all welds so that the product is monolithic.
Step Four Hardening and polishing
The ax blade needs to be hardened, then the steel will become very hard, such an ax will hold sharpening for a long time. We heat the blade and immerse this heated part in oil. We check the blade with a file, steel should not be scratched.
After hardening, we perform grinding and polish the ax. It is also possible to rough sharpen an ax, here the author uses a belt sander.
Step Five Decorative ring
We make a decorative ring for the hatchet, for such purposes we need a coin of non-ferrous metal. We drill a hole in the center of the coin, and then carefully fill it on the cone. To give the coin its final shape, the author heated the metal to a yellow glow.
Step Six Assembly and testing
We collect homemade, the handle is impregnated with oil and set an ax on it. The handle expands towards the end, so we put the ax on the side where we hold hands. Next, after the ax, we also install a decorative ring. If everything is done correctly, the ax on the handle will still hold rather tightly, no wedges and glue will be needed.
The ax is ready, we sharpen the blade to a razor condition, grinding water stones will help us in this matter. The author’s ax turned out to be very sharp, he easily cuts paper and thinly slices a tomato. The project is completed on this, the home-made turned out to be quite high-quality and reliable. I hope you enjoyed the project and found useful thoughts for yourself. Good luck with creative inspirations, if you decide to repeat this, do not forget to share your ideas and homemade things with us!