Forging the wrapped eye axe - part 1

one of the things I really enjoy making in the blacksmith shop are axes I like to make lots of different styles of axes and a wrap die axe is one of the more traditional approaches to axe forging and it's something that is very obtainable even if you don't have a power hammer or other heavy equipment the rapp die allows you to obtain a very nice even symmetrical eye without having to punch a hole so you don't need a power hammer or a press or you don't have to be able to swing a great big hammer to do this the only thing you need to be able to do is Forge weld so let's take a look at what went into the making of this axe welcome back to black bear Ford let's get started on our axe I have a pattern piece here that I keep hanging on the wall that tells me exactly what I need to do to start this act so let's take a look at the pattern I don't know if you can read all of this or not but it it tells you exactly what it is but you can also measure because this is full size it's not just a template it's a full size start and it says it's half by one and a half cut 9 inches long so it tells me exactly what I need to start with and it tells me that centered on my centerline I need to have an inch and a quarter mark the center line is cut in here but you don't do that on the finished axe it's just on the pattern so I know what I'm doing because if it was just pencil marks it would wear off on the backside from the centerline or centered on the centerline I need three and a half inches to my marks so the first thing we need to do is cut a piece of material that exact same size put all of our marks on it then we can head to the anvil and get started now the reason we've laid this out on the other side and the reason that I put little grinder marks in there is like an index and fuller in here I want to put a little fuller in at both of these marks this is way out of scale but and then when we actually Forge this we're gonna thin this out between these Fuller's but I want to end up with the piece that has a raised section on one side and then at both ends and this is the part that will become the eye when this wraps around this will touch this and this is the pole of the axe then in this section is thinned out to become the eye so that's why these are laid out on opposite sides of the axe you have to make sure you don't mess this up or this up as you draw all that out so here's a piece that's already done to that stage it's got the Fuller's in it and here's one that has then been drawn out as I was mentioning so hopefully you can see that in the camera if not hopefully you'll see it as we Forge it I get lots of requests to see more things in the coal Forge so I'm gonna clean this old fire out get rid of the ash and the clinker and we'll light the coal Forge for this axe first thing I want to do is just define these marks a little bit better with a skinny fuller I'm working under the power hammer I just use a piece of quarter inch round bar for this I want to make sure that I've got marks that I'll be able to find at the edge of the anvil it's a start to refine this this works very well if you have a striker I also do it under the treadle hammer or like I say power hammer the exact same thing to all four marks just to get it all laid out and ready try to make them all the same depth to the wedge out of my tool the thing I'm done with it hook the knots over the edge of the anvil where I can feel it and half face blows I'm going to turn it over and hook the other notch over the other edge of the anvil and again half face blows be careful not to mess up your first little notch there but that starts to create that shape we want hopefully that gives you the idea and I'm gonna go to this diagonal peen hammer that's nice and heavy to spread that out this is where you want to create some ears from both sides to break them evenly let thin this out till it's about quarter inch thick maybe maybe a little thinner than that there you can see the ear starting to form and we'll get a chance to refine that now I'll go ahead and flip this around and work on the other side I want to make both sides match at each step you can do one end at a time but I think it's easier keeps you from getting confused if you do alternating sides working at a good high heat helps now it's real important that both sides match so get a pair of dividers or use a ruler and check that looks like this second side could be about a 1/8 of an inch longer through there so we'll just stretch that out lightly also remember that heat causes this to expand and it may look a little bit different or measure slightly different on the hot side the hot side might be longer in this case the hot side was shorter so you know I needed to draw it out yeah it looks better the next thing I want to do is start refining those ears I don't like little soft round ears I like nice pointy ears like a Vulcan to start that I'm gonna go right here at the anvil we will get a chance to work on these again later but the better they are before you weld the happier you'll be in the long run you also work on this side you can also use a rounding hammer at the Horn of the anvil and get a pretty nice effect here again it pays to work both sides from both angles that's really getting to be what I want so let's turn it around to the other side I'll use that same procedure and do it the same on both sides here in with the rounding hammer or you can do it the forge the less you have to do with a file or grinder but odds are you'll have to do some filing or grinding it seems inevitable now something I did forget to mention is that these dimensions need to fit your drift and the dimensions I gave do fit a fairly standard size ax handle that you can buy at most hardware stores so it's they're good dimensions but if you're making your own handle and your own drift do some test pieces and find out how much material need to draw out so that it'll actually fit the drift you're going to use I'd like to go ahead and spread this out at this stage and get it close to the shape I want so that when we weld the bit in all we're doing is final forging and not doing a whole lot of movement of material that might shear the weld and for that we'll go back to the double diagonal peen this four pound hammer so mostly I'm just spreading this width wise at this point now don't Forge so far up the ax body that you end up messing up your shoulder here you've got to keep that intact at this point and be plenty of more foraging on this after we do the weld so that's pretty good right there now is getting these to be a perfect match or fairly slim there'll be some filing or grinding or something but you know to get about the same amount of material at each side they're about the same size this one's a little bit tipped there so I think I'll straighten that out a little bit it'd also be just a hair longer looks like yeah look straighter lots of shaping left to do after we put the tool steel bit in so now remember the pole goes on the outside these shoulders go on the inside to form the eye things always look pretty ugly as you pull them up but you can't get them to go together properly now remember the key element here is the shoulder on the inside right through here if the points on the ears don't line up or if the pole is a little bit crooked none of that really matters right now get this shoulder to line up this is where a pair of knee tongs comes in really handy you can grab that pole this is our chance to try and their even everything up what I really got those blades different sizes that will take a little grinding before I weld I think paying too much attention to talking to the camera not enough to attention and forging here let's straighten that out so the eye lines up again that's the key thing it's the hardest thing to fix later so that's where I'm going to leave that for now I think I'm gonna go to the grinder and I'm going to trim up that edge and make everything line up better and get it all ready for welding well that cools let's work on what will be the steel cutting edge so I have a piece of quarter by inch and a half 1075 steel 5160 is good for the estate 85 would be good for this just depends what you're gonna use the axe for to some extent but 1075 is a good steel its oil hardening and I'm gonna first I'm going to make it a little bit thicker because I'd like a thicker edge when we do the weld so it stays thicker and then I'll draw out one edge so I've got a scarf along the edge of it I would prefer to buy this as five sixteenths buy one but that seems like an odd size and the suppliers don't want to carry it that way so we're going to make it closer to five sixteenths by one I just want to draw out one edge so it'll form kind of a scarf when we weld this in we actually want that to curb the other direction if we can get it to curve then hurt the back bend at first and as you get close to the edge might want to come to the edge here and so your hammers not striking the anvil and make sure that it's going to be long enough to fit in the axe body and it is that will become our cutting edge I'm gonna go ahead and bring this up to heat one more time let it air cool at normalize both of these parts are gonna need to cool for a little while I need to let the Axe body cool so I can grind it up and make things match the weld will go smoother if I go ahead and take that extra step the cutting edge needs to cool and normalize that I'm cut it off and make sure it's gonna fit the axe body properly once that's done we'll cut some little teeth in it so it doesn't squirt out of the axe body because that's a real nuisance when you start to weld and it squirts out of there like a watermelon seed so I think this will end up being a 2 maybe even a 3 part video we'll pick up with the grinding and the welding in the next video and that should also get the entire axe forged and may be ready for heat treat but rarely do I heat treat the same day I do the forging I like to let it anneal overnight do the final grinding shaping and then harden and temper it so that'll probably be a third video so I wouldn't look for three videos out of this series and they will probably post on consecutive Friday's this video should have been available on Friday and the next one will be available next Friday even though I'll probably film it tomorrow and then the Friday after that we should have the third part of this and then we should have it all concluded have it on a handle have the thing ready to go out to the customer I hope you have time in your day to get out to your shop but be safe wear your safety glasses and we'll see you for the next one

Channel: Black Bear Forge

Views: 70,354

Keywords: Blacksmith, blacksmithing for beginners, black bear forge, john switzer, axe, wrapped eye axe, forged axe, forge welded axe, part 1, part one, forging an axe, making an axe, colonial axe, traditional blacksmithing, viking axe, forge a viking axe, traditional axe forging, hand forged axe, camp axe, hatchet, how to, blacksmithing projects, axe making, blacksmith shop, basic blacksmithing, forging a tomohawk, trade axe, blackbear forge, hand forged, blacksmith anvil

Id: 8T5NkC7CTiY

Length: 22min 35sec (1355 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2019