I have been keen to make an axe for a long time. My first attempt looked OK, but due to a some
confusion at a hammerin, it turned out to have a mild steel edge, so I threw it away!
I bought a few hickory 14 inch hatchet handles, and ground an old punch to shape to make
a drift to shape the eye of the axe head. Here is a picture of the handle and the finished drift:
I decided to make the body and eye of the axe from 1/4 inch mild steel sheet, and the edge steel
from 3/16 inch EN42 tool steel. The tool steel insert is unusual, because it is much larger than usual
with this style of axe. The reason I did this was that my gas forge doesn't get hot enough to
weld mild steel to itself. The tool steel melts at a lower temperature and will stick to the mild.
Consequently the tool steel insert has to be large enough to prevent any direct contact of the sides.
Here is a picture of the parts and drift ready to use:
The first step is to bend the hot mild sheet using the anvil, and to insert the tool steel into the gap.
Before folding I cleaned the faces to be welded and applied borax flux at red heat. This picture shows
the insert roughly in place:
The head was heated and the surfaces forged closer together as can be seen below. You can't
see the insert, because it has dropped out of position. In fact keeping it in the correct place
while forge welding is the most tricky part.
I soaked the head in the forge for quite a long time, until it was all at welding temperature, and
hammered it by hand to weld it. In the picture below, you can see that the insert was slightly too small.
After this photo, I ground off the excess mild steel.
I then forged the head to shape, and refined the eye by hammering the drift into it. The eye is
larger at the top to ensure that the handle can't come off in use. Please note that I left the edge
thick, because I didn't want the tool steel insert compressed too much and it is important that
mild steel doesn't form the finished edge. Here is the forged head prior to grinding:
After grinding the edge area to expose the tool steel edge, I hardened the blade in oil. Here is
a picture of the hardened blade, if you look carefully the exposed EN42 is visible for about 1/8 inch
from the edge:
The head was then cleaned with a wire brush, tempered at 450F in our oven, and sharpened.
I fitted the handel with a custom made hardwood wedge and an iron hammer wedge. Here is a photo of
the finished hatchet after trying it out:
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