The classic tomahawk ax, which is used today as a throwing weapon, can be made with your own hands from an ordinary hammer with a big hammer. Most of the work is forging, so you cannot do without skills and experience in blacksmithing.
Since the hole in the hammer for the wooden handle is small, it needs to be expanded slightly. To do this, we heat the hammer and, using a special chisel, “punch” a hole of a suitable size. Then, flattening the heated red-hot striker, we make the canvas (or as they also call it the cheek) of the future tomahawk.
Next, make a point on the butt by analogy with a pike-like tomahawk. It can be made straight or curved - as you like best. Before processing the ax, you must remove the scale and, if necessary, trim the edges with a grinder.
Getting started tomahawk
When all the main forging operations are completed, you can proceed to grinding the ax. This process is not quick, but you need to try to ensure that the end result meets your expectations. First of all, we grind the sides, then the cheeks of the tomahawk, and then the point on the butt (it is also called klevets).
Using a hand mill on the sides of the tomahawk, we make small indentations under the steel strip, curved in the form of the letter "P". Next, we heat the ax red-hot and do the standard hardening of the metal, immersing it in oil. And then we put it on a wooden handle and additionally fasten it with a steel plate. For a detailed process of making a tomahawk from a hammer, see the video on the site.
