Woodsman 'hawk with sheath

This is the first piece of mine to make it up to Alaska.  12" Woodsman (hammer poll) model, unsharpened inner beard, black Durabake and natural tan canvas Micarta.  1/4" 4140 steel, flared stainless steel tube rivets.

The customer ordered a sheath with the shoulder sling, double adjustable and quick-detachable.

Wrecker 'hawk with bare sheath

This one went out to the customer a few days ago.  18" Wrecker model with pry spike, sharpened inner beard, black Durabake and Micarta.  1/4" 4140 steel.

He plans to have a buddy build a leather sheath for it, but went ahead and got a Kydex one without carry options for the meantime.

Temper, temper

Nine ground and hardened tomahawks hanging in the kiln, ready to temper.  They've gone through the tempering cycle now; this picture was taken before.

 

Done with one batch, on to the next!

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 posts.  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 on to 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.

War Chief tactical tomahawk with sheath-making video

I had a customer who lives nearby come to the shop today and watch as his tomahawk's sheath was made.  He ordered a 12" War Chief (combat spike) in black, with a sheath.  He also brought tasty breakfast tacos!  :)

 

 1/4" 4140 steel, canvas Micarta handles, flared stainless tube rivets.

The sheath is Kydex, bottom-eject, ambidextrous, MOLLE-compatible, jump-ready with multiple carry options.

He chose to add a quick-detach double adjustable shoulder strap and IWB bands.

 

And here's how I built the sheath.  I had templates waterjet cut to build the Kydex molding forms, lay out holes and slots, and trim the overall outline.  Still takes time, but the results are consistent and work well.  I'll do another video in the future showing the sheath's various carry options.



 

 

Four more 'hawks waiting on sheaths and sharpening, then on to the next batch!

Micarta manipulation

It was a short day yesterday, 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.

Wrecker tactical tomahawk in black. First look at new sheaths.

This one went out to a patient customer this past weekend.

18" overall length Wrecker model (pry spike) with a sharpened inner beard.  Black Durabake coating and Micarta with flared stainless steel flared tube rivets on 1/4" 4140 steel.

 He is one of the first customers to receive a sheath from me, something that delayed me starting to work on orders by probably at least a month while I built the tooling to make them and tried it out, working out the little tricks inherent in any process.

It's Kydex, bottom eject, ambidextrous, MOLLE compatible, jump ready, with multiple carry options.

This particular one was ordered with optional second retention strap, quick-detach double adjustable shoulder strap, and MOLLE locks.

Hope it serves him well, and I appreciate him sticking with me while I got everything off the ground.  :)