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Forged bearded carving hatchet

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Handforged:
Here is something fun.

This is a small bearded carving hatchet I forged out and just got around to finishing up. This is not a traditional style persay but one that I make from time to time. It has the cheeks of a more modern hatchet to give a slim line to the hatchet but still protect the sides. It's fairly lightweight at about 1.5 pounds. It's still a work in progress, I etched it for a quick picture to see the hamon created on the edge. Axes and hatchets are normally forged from softer steels, typically 1050-1060 or the like. I do the same with mine but after the basic shape is forged in I split the cutting edge and forge weld in a piece of high carbon steel for the cutting edge. In this case it's 1084. The head is then differentially heat treated to make the cutting edge harder than the body of the hatchet. When it is etched you can see this dividing line in the steel clearly. I don't normally finish these down to a high polish, this one was just a fun little side project. I am working on a nice hewn handle from a piece of scrap hickory handle I had laying around. When the oil on it cures I will do a half leather wrap to make it more comfortable to use for long periods carving out staves. ENJOY!

YosemiteBen:
Nice work! Forging is another hobby I would like to do, being a full time working stiff not much time for it.

dylanholderman:
nice! did you forge weld the body or drift a hole? if you drifted it what size stock did you start with?

Hawkdancer:
Nice!  How would spring steel work for something like that?  Got steel - got no forge! (f) (lol)
Hawkdancer

Handforged:

--- Quote from: dylanholderman on March 13, 2020, 10:19:39 am ---nice! did you forge weld the body or drift a hole? if you drifted it what size stock did you start with?

--- End quote ---

This is a fold over, meaning that it started out as a flat piece of steel. Folded over a drift to make the eye in this case. For my drift all I did was take a piece of 4140 and grind it to the shape of a standard hatchet eye. This one is bullet (oblong) not round. For smaller thin hatchets starting from flat stock is much easier than forging down a larger piece of steel. In my case it makes more sense as I planned to forge weld a higher carbon cutting edge anyway.

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