Forging an AXE from a Rail Road Spike

what do you say we get started on a railroad spike tomahawk i'm going to start this with the handle and make a mark on my drift so i know not to drift too far it's really the pits when your handle falls all the way through i want to start this project by upsetting the end where the blade will be some people turn the head into the blade but in my mind the whole reason you're doing this out of a railroad spike in the first place is so people know it was done out of a railroad spike so for that i want to leave the head intact for the entire process if i can it'd be real easy to roll that tip over and forge a little cold shut so make sure you keep that under control [Music] i think we'll upset that just a little bit more and try and clean up that end but then it'll be time to make an eye this thing does like to bend use my fingers as a little guide here to get a pretty well centered line this is going to be my first use of this clamp we looked at in the previous video so there may be a little fiddling around to get everything to work just right i want to establish my chisel marks cold and then we'll heat it up and do the rest of the chiseling with it hot the upset is going to make it hard to clamp up like this the upset on one end and the head on the other makes it a little bit weird now i really am impressed with this hold down tool and i think it has a lot of potential i just don't think the railroad spike is the right use for it things are just too cramped there's too many protrusions outside the railroad spike so i can't get this to clamp as tight as i would like but for splitting long straps things like that for hinges hooks other ornamental work i think this is going to be great so chuck thanks for sending it out and we'll give it a better test in another video turning it around from time to time does help keep the eye centered you may also have to adjust the lean of your chisel a little bit if you're starting to go off one way or the other it also pays to cool your chisel off regularly so it doesn't get too hot [Music] so that has a hole through it and clean it up a little bit working over the open jaws of the vise allows me to support the part that needs it without the head and the upset on the other end being in the way i'm just going to start opening this eye with a another chisel that has a nice round shank on it so i can get it room for the drift [Music] [Music] for this kind of an eye you are always drifting from the top the handle is one that's meant to be easily removable you it's almost up to the line i put in earlier i don't want to drift it any further you you make sure it's straight put the drift back in it kind of lightly and that way i can tell if it's twisted or not in relationship to the handle last thing to do is heat it up one more time then let it air cool and normalize our rail spike head has had a chance to cool off so let's go rough grind it and get it ready to harden and temper black bear forge is sponsored by combat abrasives use the link in the video description and the coupon code black bear 10 for discount on your next order [Music] now generally i don't do that much grinding on a railroad spike hawk i figure this is kind of a novelty item and leaving them a little bit rough on the surfaces is just fine for that fact i think most people kind of prefer it that way but every time we do something with railroad spikes people have to get into the usual argument about their great steel or their terrible steel or you use the ones marked hc for high carbon and they're better steel so let's find out today let's do a little bit more testing this is one of the hc spikes that doesn't mean it's high carbon steel it's not like 1095 or w1 something like that just means it has more carbon in it than your average railroad spike this is unhardened it's been normalized it's been ground i have a set of hardness testing files here i'm going to go right to the lowest which is a rockwell 40. if this scratches the surface this is less hard than rockwell 40. and at this point that's what i expect it leaves a very nice scratch so that's definitely less than rockwell 40. now we're going to harden it and temper it and find out what it's like after hardening and tempering i'm going to let that soak in the fire with the blower off for a few minutes just to let it come up to heat more gradually and also to make sure the heat's even all the way through i'm going to be quenching this in water because railroad spikes don't get all that hard and water is the fastest quench i have available in the shop so that's going to do the best job that we can i'm mostly just quenching the edge at this point but i'm not going to be letting temper colors run so that we can test the hardness i just don't want to over stress the back there's no reason to harden the eye now typically you should temper immediately after you get down to the point that you can handle the piece that you've just hardened leaving it full of stress can cause cracks but i'm going to go ahead and go clean this up on the grinder get it back so we guarantee there's no scale on here then we're going to test it with the hardness files again so this time we'll go through these files the proper way you should always start with the hardest one and work your way down until you get to one that no longer cuts so that's a 65 rockwell yes that leads a scratch hopefully you can see this 60. i really don't expect great results i just expect it to be a little harder than it was 55 was definitely a little harder to file ooh rockwell 50 barely cuts it and for a little axe that you're probably going to use for throwing axe or targets or splitting a little bit of kindling wood here and there that's not bad the rockwell 45 does not really cut into the surface at least the teeniest tiniest scratch mark so i think it's in that 45 to 50 definitely harder than it was but not great so if you're looking for the high carbon the hc if you can see that hopefully you can if you're looking for these hc spikes to be as good as any other high carbon steel they're just not going to do it but this is plenty hard enough to hold up for what a railroad spike tomahawk is likely to get used for okay i'm going to put this in the toaster oven temper it i'm not going to temper it very far it doesn't need to be any softer this is just stress relief so i'm only going to go to 300 leave it in there for about an hour that's probably all it needs then i'll clean it up take those scratches we just put in there back out and sharpen it put it on the handle and we'll have a finished product so there's a little railroad spike tomahawk head makes a nice little novelty item not the hardest thing in the world it's not going to hold a great edge but it can still be useful especially with a handle this is a commercially made handle it's referred to as a mouse hawk handle so it's for smaller lighter weight tomahawks i buy these from house handle company and they have all sorts of different handles and it fits pretty good but it's not quite perfect i'd like it to go up a little bit more and there's a few little air gaps around here but by driving it up on there maybe you can see that there's some little dark marks here that's where it's hanging up and that's where i need to trim a little bit so we'll do that a little here and there until this fits up just a little bit better it's already quite a bit better i also think these handles are way too long for something like this for throwing axes if you're going to throw this and that's probably about all i'm going to do with it i think if you put your hand over the head cut this off at your elbow you get a little bit better length that's a good good guy to go by [Music] you

Channel: Black Bear Forge

Views: 302,693

Keywords: Blacksmith, blacksmithing for beginners, black bear forge, john switzer, Blacksmithing, Blacksmithing project, how to blacksmith, blacksmith shop, blacksmith forge, learn blacksmithing, forge, anvil, blacksmith anvil, axe, ax, rail spike, rail road spike, rr spike, railroad spike, tomahawk, raile road spike tomahawk, rail spike tomahawk, rail spike axe, rail road spike axe, blacksmithing projects, forging an axe from a rail road spike

Id: 8JbVhetF9RA

Length: 17min 6sec (1026 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021