It was a rainy morning which is unusual in August here in my neck of the woods. I figured to get a little forging done so I figured to practice on a hatchet. It started looking pretty good so I just stayed with it and got it heat treated. I started with about 3 1/4 inches of 1 1/2 inch round of L6 steel. I sort of squared it so it would lay still while I slit it.
   

   

I used a home made drift that I forged a while back and pulled and spread out the blade.
   

I profiled and cleaned up the sides and hardened the blade and the poll. It's in the oven now for the second time winding up that stage of heat treat.
   

I should have some more pictures tomorrow late.

Ive always wanted to do this. Waiting for more.

That's going to be nice.  A hatchet is one of the things on my bucket list, but I'm not quite ready to tackle something like that with my limited forging experience and equipment.  I'd love to build one with an as forged finish and walnut handle.  I guess I need to forge me a draw knife first to shape the handle with.

Can't wait to see this one done.

Matt

That's really aggravating.
Not nearly enough in-progress photos.  :D

No doubt you forge smiths are a step above. I love all your work. Thanks for always sharing.

Todd

Lin, that's fantastic. The last picture is my favorite. For anyone who hasn't forged before, that REALLY good, smooth finish on that hot steel is amazing. Your forging skills are something to strive towards. I had some challenges slitting and drifting the two hawks I've tried-it's quite the skill by itself. Thanks for sharing some progress photos.

Jeremy

I don't intend for you to misunderstand. The last picture is of the thermo cycle after I smoothed up the forging. I forge a little "past" the finished object, then refine by a combination of finer forging and grinding.

This one is ready to finish up the surface. I should do that this afternoon and will post some pics. I drifted the eye slightly larger than some in the past so I could beef up the wood in the eye.

Here are some other shots through out the process.

Here I am starting the actual drift. Looks bad but it will start to smooth out as I lay it on it's side and smack it making the eye form to the drift.
 

This is the rough profile which can be refined by grinding a little, maybe by forging too if need be.
 

This another shot after it has been profiled and smoothed up during the thermo cycle. You can see that it has some shape to it rather than having "straight" sides.
 

Love it Lin!  A good hammer poll hatchet is something I have been wanting but don't yet have. Great for camping.

Do you use a flatter for smoothing your forgings out on large things like this?

No, I just hammer them out. Thanks

I got the head finished.

 
 
 

Excellent work Lin!

Beauty!

Home run!!  Love that head, gotta get me one of those...!


Waiting to see the haft.

a thing of beauty!

can you share some pics of your drift?  I struggle with not having the whole thing smoosh when attempting to drift w/o drilling first.  

Well, I don't have JS or MS as part of my makers mark either but I would like to improve.

Very nice looking hawk/axe head!!

Lin, that's ALMOST too pretty to use. But then I bet it really begs to be used just so it can show off.

That head is awesome! The haft is looking like it should be very nice, as well. I struggle when drifting to have both sides of the eye even...yours looks fantastic. I like the overall shape-very useful design.

Jeremy

Outstanding!