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Tomahawk from a Rasp Blacksmithing Part 46

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Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning guys Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school out here at the forage again today what I thought I'd do today is show you guys how to make a tomahawk head and this one is made out of an old used horseshoe rasp we're going to go through the process of making this today but I want to go ahead and show you the finished product before we start stay with

so the main object of the game now is just to get this what laps that we're going to put it on it's going to form our eye we just want to get that a pretty nice even thickness with the width of the length that we need and if we're a little bit longer that's okay now what we're going to do is we're going to put a concavity in this after we do our fold over our laps going to be we're going to put a concavity in this what that's going to do is it's going to help when you wrap that into a circle to keep it from bowing out if you notice some tomahawk heads are bowed out we don't want that we want to be a nice closed circle I'll show the example not just a minute so what I'm talking about a nice closed loop what I'm talking about is how this thing is tapered in all the way down instead of being bell shaped outward you start with a flat piece of metal it's going to want to bail out on you if you start with a concave piece of metal it'll hold that barrel shape and that's what you want around your tomahawk so we're going to make that tomahawk I exactly the way we made just fro I except instead of making a fro we're going to put a tomahawk head on so it'll be virtually the same thing same process same Forge welding everything

okay this is our the lap this is what we're going to weld this will wrap around and well to the other side again just make sure we got everything nice and straight even and that's going to be our lap showing now we're going to put our concavity okay we want to turn art what flap over better off with a hammer like this for this job and we just want to put that against the shoulder make that somewhat concave back there we're going to roll that over see a little bit of concavity in there else we want okay give her one more heat here now we're will that and then we'll burn that eye back to center a little bit better let's heat it up and get it rounded out a little bit better first okay now we're getting where we need to be now we kind of want to close that gap right there as best we can before we forwards well but we don't want that air gap in there that may require me to pound it just a little bit off-center to begin with does that's okay I want to get rid of as much of that gap as I can before I start my welding process okay well I've got my fire heating up to really really hot I want to come through here and I want to really get this thing cleaned up for a minute then I'm going to heat it up for the first heat and I'm going to flux it still got a little bit of a gap in there I don't like when we heat it up we can close that gap right before we flux okay so now we got it cleaned up we're going to flux the area that we're getting ready to weld and I'm using a product called sure weld much more reliable for Forge welding and borax not near as old-school but a lot more reliable and I want to get that in every joint even a little bit to the inside if I can where that crack is we don't want to leave any of that stuff on or ever okay now we're trying to heat this thing up

the white-hot till it's almost to the melting point we got to be careful because we got that I back there that's right in probably the hottest part of that fire and that's not where I want I want it back a little bit I want this area I'm getting rid of weld I want that right in the middle of that white-hot fire again the difference between welding heat and milking heat ain't a whole lot again I'm just tapping this thing really light to begin with okay let's clean it up get ready for another heat

we're looking pretty good right now it's like we got a really good weld on the edge there now we ought to have a pretty darn good well

you

okay once we get this thing heated back up again we're going to take the eye back over to that ball-peen hammer that we formed our I around we're just going to straighten it up smooth it out make sure it's the way we want it try to get it centered on the blade and then we're going to start working on the front half or the bit of our tomahawk we want to make sure that we got our complete initial profile on this thing as far as our blade goes and it's fairly sharp before we heat treat it because all I'm really doing now is I'm just checking my grind geometry here because I do everything by hand so I want to make sure that whatever I've done I've pretty much kept it even a little bit off on this side just here at the bottom not much we can fix that pretty easy and we'll get really close now to heat treating this thing getting it down dirty heat

I'm trying to get a decent convex edge on this thing and I'm getting pretty close now to what I want we'll be able to put the final wedge on after heat treat okay all I'm doing now is just really kind of putting my final edge I want on here before I heat treat this just real slow as you stroke through the mill file in circular fashion

close up for me fellows all right we're just going to give this thing a down dirty heat treat we're going to heat it up till it's an orange color mainly the blade not the eye and we're a quenching oil blade first okay for this I'm going to turn the blower's off just going to drop the blade right down in the coals right there just like that and just let it heat up slow until the whole thing turns orange okay this is exactly what I'm looking for that blade is a dull orange color the eye is not red-hot at all I want it to stay pretty soft and flexible but I want that blade bit to be really nice and hard now we'll take that out and we'll dump that in a lil blade first

brush them down let him air dry I appreciate you guys joining me today for the video I here at the forge and our blacksmithing series on how to make a tomahawk head and we just had an advanced blacksmithing class out here we had at Lima ler a full-time Amish blacksmith out here giving us some really good one-on-one training in you know his Forge welding training was just definitely worth the ticket price alone I'm really really happy with the way the forged well turned out in this time Hawk hat is seamless you can't see it at all there's no difference in material thickness I think it's a great great for as well and I attribute that directly to at Lee Miller's training I appreciate your views that preciate your support I thank you for anything of you for me for my school for my family for my friends supporters the sponsors of it back to another video soon as I can thanks guys you

About the Author

wildernessoutfitters

wildernessoutfitters

From the lore of bushcraft to all things related to self-sustainability, the Pathfinder vision is to pass on the knowledge of outdoor self-reliance. Providing basic to advanced self-reliance training and survival gear, our goal is to offer both practical knowledge and survival gear that will stand the test of time. From emergency preparedness to sustainability, the Pathfinder way is to share and educate.

Here you can explore the world of survival knives, survival kits and simple tips on outdoor self-reliance. We are always learning and enjoy passing on the knowledge we acquire.

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