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To Many Hawks?

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To which point does one have "to many hawks?"

I just acquired a Virgina poll axe, one I have had a little first hand experience with and grew fond of. I seem to enjoy the trial and error side of gear selection, which lends me to acquiring more gear! I've grown tired of carrying my French style axe as It's heavier weight has grown to become a dislike. As my skills increase, my accoutrements carried lessen which is good, as does weight.

Coupled with my Native hawks which are not used for trekking or camp tasks, is six hawks and multiple axes to much?! :grin:

I feel a blanket sale approaching at this months event...
 
There are some things where one can honestly say that they have too many - chores, aches & pains, waist size - all come to mind.
On the other hand, does "too many" even belong in the same sentence as guns, knives, axes, or money? Perhaps but only if used along with "to carry" - as in someone has too many axes to carry. :grin:
 
Lol, I could care less about the money... Give me the hawks, guns and knives! Money won't keep you alive in the wilderness!

All joking aside, it really makes me wonder how much "gear" the ancestors collected throughout the period.
 
They probably collected much less gear than we do today.

Also, Crewdog, how much money have any of us lost on the guns we own? My guess is not much unless we paid way too much. Of course, if we wait long enough the price will get there.
 
Last year I was up at fort Osage near KC. One of the boys there had a blanket out, with all the gear a French trappper had owned when he died. A blanket coat fusil pipe and tobacco and some sundries. It had been recorded in his death record.
I think when we trek or pack in to an event that we are closer to real life of what the old timers carried. Still when I trek I leave a lot of my toys at home. We are just playing cowboys and Indians here. Our little toys brighten our life, you can't have too much fun.
 
I've got three, none of which are exactly what I am looking for. I used to have one of those cast throwing "New Reliable" 'hawks that Track sells, which I gave to my brother because while it was fun to throw it wasn't much good for anything else. I replaced it with a hand-forged hammer-poll 'hawk that I bought off ebay, which is the perfect weight for a fighting tomahawk and would make a decent tool as well if it were not for the fact that the eye is so poorly made that the handle and the head cannot stay tight after the first swing. I still have it somewhere. I also have a small round-polled bag axe, with a four ounce head, that I forged myself. Wasn't intended as a round-poll but as a hammer poll, but I got the chisel askew while cutting the slot for the eye and there was no way I could line up the poll and the head, so it became a round-poll axe. It is cute and works well within its limitations, but is too light for serious work in the woods. Finally, I have a pipe tomahawk that I made from one of the RE Davis "English" cast heads, filing it to a different profile and heat-treating it myself, but while it looks pretty nice despite having some serious problems with the original casting it is way too thick and heavy and the eye (and consequently the handle) is too small for my taste.

I also have a full-sized axe made from a head I bought at the flea market and hafted with a straight handle, but it isn't intended as a period piece, just a useful tool.

I need to make or buy a really first class tomahawk/hatchet.
 
I don't own a pipe hawk surprisingly. Unless I'm gifted one, (Just as feathers are gifted not given) I have no use for one since they are mainly reserved for ceremonial use, elders and those in leadership positions.

I've seen some fabulous examples of them for sure, but I hold true to old traditions.
 
The formula fur the right number of fun things is Y = (n -1) where n is the number that will get you divorced. It varies from spouse to spouse.
 
ElNathan,

For the one that's nice but non-functional because it gets loose...Have you tried a metal wedge in the wood that's inside the eye?

I had a poll belt axe that did the same thing. I tried all different kids of wooden shims and wedges. The director asked if it was loose one day. He'd made it over the winter and he said in warmer weather sometimes they loosen.

So he drove a little steel wedge right down the middle of the top of the handle. It expanded the wood to really grip the sides. Ive had zero problems with it loosening since then. I tried to do so with some heavy duty chopping and it held fast.
 
To which point does one have "to many hawks?"

I think the answer to your question is purely, SITUATIONAL...,

If you are carrying a lot of your 'hawks, and fall into a large body of water so that the weight prevents you from reaching or remaining on the surface..., THEN you have too many 'hawks. So drop them, and try to remember where you are in relation to a landmark so you can pick them up off the bottom at a later time with a shop magnet.

:haha:

LD
 
SgtErv said:
ElNathan,

For the one that's nice but non-functional because it gets loose...Have you tried a metal wedge in the wood that's inside the eye?

I had a poll belt axe that did the same thing. I tried all different kids of wooden shims and wedges. The director asked if it was loose one day. He'd made it over the winter and he said in warmer weather sometimes they loosen.

So he drove a little steel wedge right down the middle of the top of the handle. It expanded the wood to really grip the sides. Ive had zero problems with it loosening since then. I tried to do so with some heavy duty chopping and it held fast.

Okay, I'll see if I can describe the issue. The original problem was that when the smith forged the blade, he apparently got the eye a little too big to fit a commercial handle, and fixed the problem by hammering the ends back in a little to where they fit tightly around the eye drift. The end result was that there was a kind of ridge running around the edges of the eye with the middle of the eye kind of hollowed out, so that the handle only contacted the head consistently around front and back of the eye. In other words, the eye, while looking good from the outside, only contacted the handle all the way around for about 1/16" at the front and 1/16" at the end of the eye. The moment one used the axe, the little ridges would start digging into the handle and the handle very quickly got wallowed out and before long would not fit tightly at all.

I tried to fix the problem by filing the inside of the eye out, leaving an irregular eye but one with a straight taper that would allow me to custom fit a handle that would fit tightly all the way through the eye. I didn't do a particularly good job on getting a perfect fit, but the real problem turned out to be that the taper of the eye was now so great that the handle just slipped off as soon as it was used. I did think about using a wedged handle, but the eye is only about 5/8"-3/4" long IIRC, so the split of the wedge would have to extend well past the eye into the handle to be able to open up sufficiently to be any use. Even driving tiny wedges into the rear of the eye to keep it from moving back did not work.

There is just no fixing this one, short of wrapping everything up in rawhide or something, or (possibly) reforging it. I suppose that if I HAD to use the axe I could drive a nail into the handle right behind the head, but I don't think that even that would get me the tight fit I want, and is kind of a "Bubba" solution anyway.

Not a complete waste, as I have learned a great deal about what I like and don't like in an axe from this one. With a long, 21" handle it has almost perfect balance as a weapon - it corresponds very well to the very close copy of an original 18th century pipe axe I got to handle a year ago - and I like the stout haft I have on it now, as it is much nicer to grasp than the commercial handles available. The form isn't particularly PC (looks like a pipe axe with a squared-off solid bowl rather than an original hammer-pole) and the very short eye is a liability even if it were perfectly formed, though.
 
Rifleman1776 said:
nhmoose said:
Huh???? do not understand problem.

Same here. Need more. No pipe hawk, gotta get one.
http://i496.photobucket.com/albums/rr329/Rifleman1776/tomahawks2.jpg[/IMG][/img][/url]

I like the way you have those displayed. I see some plywood on my shop wall in the future. Right now I have my hatchet collection in a wooden box on a shelf, but not nearly enough tomahawks in it. One of them has "tomahawk" stamped right in the steel, though, so it must be a tomahawk.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One of them has "tomahawk" stamped right in the steel, though, so it must be a tomahawk.

The bottom one is not really a tomahawk. It is a True Temper "Tomahawk" style axe. The word "Tomahawk" is stamped on it. The axe was given to me when I was a 10 year old Boy Scout. That was 68 years ago. Handle has been replaced once but I still have it.
 
Hawks are just nice... My wife tends to ask why I have so many guns, knives, hawks... The usual. Then I calmly ask if all those shoes could potentially save the rear one day... Can your shoes cut wood? Build a shelter? Serve as a defensive weapon? It goes on... In return I just get a blank stare and the look every ball and chained man knows best!

Those are some nice hawks you have there, a nice collection indeed. :thumbsup:
 
Yeah, that makes enough sense that I know it's a doozy haha.

I hear you about length and shape of the handle. Makes a big difference. My handle is sort of rectangular, and it's a fighting axe if there ever was one.

My wife said, "It's sort of small, it would take a while to chop down a tree"

"Oh, it's really for hitting people."

Blank stare, laugh, "Of course it is"




 
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