Forging a Damascus Axe

[Music] and welcome back to another exciting full build episode this video is sponsored by manscape.com and the folks over at manscape have challenged me to try and forge an axe and not just any axe they want me to try to make an axe that's sharp enough to shave with now not only am i up for the challenge i have something really special in store for you [Music] yup some of you probably already guessed it we're making this axe out of damascus [Music] everybody [Music] [Music] normally when you see ilia and myself make damascus on the channel we do what's called the hot cut and fold technique while the billet's still hot we hot cut it in half fold it flux it and continue forging the material out before it ever gets a chance to cool down which saves you a ton of time however it was the end of the day when i got this bar drawn out so i just let it cool down and now we're gonna do what's called the restacking method so i'm gonna clean my surfaces on the grinder cut them on the bandsaw restack my pieces and continue forging from there [Music] [Music] [Music] hello [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] with the initial billet now drawn out the length it's time to repeat steps five through eight [Music] now that we have the desired layer count it's time to begin working on the preform of our axe i'm going to be using a top tool to create a depression that will become the eye of the axe [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] in combination with the top tool i'm also using a bottom tool so that the bottom of our material doesn't distort while i'm working on the other side [Music] i want to take a second to tell you guys about today's sponsor and that's manscape.com since going on shark tank manscape has blown up to become the world's most premium brand in men's hygiene and grooming hygiene has become a super important issue right now and taking care of your own self from home has become the new norm manscape has everything you need to get started providing the perfect tools for your smithing jewels let's use ambles as an example every blacksmith has one and they come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes but one thing remains the same they all need a base to sit on unfortunately a lot of blacksmiths just use a rough cut stump for their anvil base and that doesn't really show off your pride and joy now does it what you want is an anvil base that's cut to fit your anvil and hey when it's made just right makes your hand look even bigger enroll in the peak hygiene plan today and you get quarterly replenishments of your favorite products and replacement blades delivered to your door hassle free your replenishment pack always comes with a free gift in this month we get the foot duster ph control foot deodorizing spray a 30 value completely free the perfect package essentials kit by manscape comes with everything you see here including water resistant high performance body trimmers and liquid products made specifically for men take it from me guys you don't want to try to book serious clients for your awesome blacksmithing work that you've spent a lot of time on looking like a crazy maniac like this you want to spend just a little bit of time on yourself you can use awesome manscape products look presentable like me and give your work the presentation it deserves go to the links below use the promo code that works 20 and receive 20 off when you click the link below and order your own package from manscape.com today [Music] [Music] all right the preform of our axe is now done we have our surfaces that will be forge welded now sanded to a 220 finish the next stage is to go ahead and bend this thing so that the two surfaces match and it does the initial shaping of our eye you could just use a forge to heat up the whole piece and do your bending that way however you're gonna risk your nice clean surfaces getting scaled up and then that would inhibit your forge weld so i'm gonna use our harris torch heat up some specific areas get that eye formed get our two pieces matching then we can move on to doing the forge weld [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so if you were paying attention you may have noticed that the eye of the axe got a little distorted while i was putting it all together that's okay i always planned on putting a drift in the eye to correct it afterwards anyway we just drifted from both sides and now our eye is perfectly to shape ready to go back to forming the actual axe itself to begin drawing out the beard and the blade of the axe i'm switching over to some drawing dies underneath our inyang power hammer [Music] these dies allow me to pinch material and pull it in any direction that i need to much more aggressively than flat dyes would have [Music] although a power hammer is absolutely fantastic for the early phases of forging acts like this sometimes you can't beat good old-fashioned hammer and anvil to finish out the forming of the axe [Music] all right we got our pattern welded damascus axe now forged everything looks pretty great i've left myself a lot of meat to grind whatever shape i feel like out of it so what i'm gonna start with is the same process that i start with on just about every grinding blade that i do axe sword knife it doesn't matter and that is the perimeter so i'm going to get in with some small wheels really establish all my shape before i ever go on to standing on the surface at all so now that we have a plan let's get to grinding [Music] so [Music] as most of you probably know me treating an item like this is the moment of truth for a craftsman this is where you find out if all your welds were good if your material is right if you actually know the proper heats that you treat at in this case how good you can take an awkward item in and out of a forge that you built [Music] so [Music] all right the heat treated rx went exactly as planned we had no warping no weld splitting everything went great i did a quick temper with a torch right after the actual quench itself and then i stuck it in our little kiln for about an hour at 420 degrees so we have a very safe timber one thing i do need your guys help on is to name this axe it doesn't have a very specific pattern that i was following i was just making an axe out of my own mind it has a bit of a carving act shape to it a little bit of viking design and then my personal design implements all throughout so do me a favor go to the comments section because this x it needs a name [Music] [Music] [Music] one of the things i've become known for is the carving work that i do on a lot of my pieces using a narrow wheel right on our 2x72 rider so you know if i'm gonna attach my name to an axe i'm probably gonna do some of this [Music] carving all right now that the metal work is just about complete on our axe it's time to move on to the wood handle now because our axe is pattern welded i decided that it needed to have an axe handle that was a little more special than normal so i have my buddy nick over at thrain axe and sawmill company make me a laminated axe blank now what that means is it has multiple pieces of wood that have been put through a planer flattened and then glued together we have in the center ash then walnut then white oak then more walnuts so all the dark is walnut and the bright is different kinds just like you'd see and a pattern welded steel billet so when i start rounding over my handle you're going to see those layers exposed a lot like you'd see in a natural green damascus pattern so it should be pretty awesome we're gonna go ahead and open up the shop doors push this thing open get some air flowing through here and start sanding on our handle [Music] [Music] all right the last little bit of metal work we have to do to our axe blade before we can etch it to reveal the beautiful pattern beneath the steel is so it's gonna be beautiful uh because i made it there is a super thin line between confidence and arrogance and i may have just crossed it anyway i'm using a slack belt attachment on my broadback ironworks grinder to create the edge belt for the reason i'm using a slack belt because i want my cutting edge to actually be convex instead of flat [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] really sorry to some of you who thought i was actually going to shave my entire beard off just for a sponsor that'll never happen little bit will do thanks for watching this pattern welded axe build don't forget to go the comments and let us know what you think the name of this act should be and if you enjoyed this video we ask you to give it a thumbs up pound that like button and tell us in the comments below what field you want to see this team build next and as always we ask you to consider subscribing to that works thank you

Channel: That Works

Views: 392,906

Rating: 4.9104185 out of 5

Keywords: Viking axe, assassins creed Valhalla, damascus axe, patternwelded axe, man at arms, matt and ilya, how to make, blacksmithing, stagmer, how to forge, blacksmithing for beginners, bushcraft, alec steele, bobby duke, fireman's axe

Id: vAlOlbkrpTw

Length: 25min 34sec (1534 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 16 2020