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Ed Caffrey's Workshop Talk to Ed Caffrey ... The Montana Bladesmith! Tips, tricks and more from an ABS Mastersmith.

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  #1  
Old 06-24-2004, 10:08 AM
SamLS SamLS is offline
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Race Axe: Steel Alloy

I would like to fabricate a special axe with a thin blade for heavy chopping duty. I can sacrifice some edge holding ability for chipping and bending resistance. What are my best options as far as steel goes to get the blade as thin as possible. These axes are hollow ground. An axe head uses a pretty large chunk of steel so I need a alloy I can find readily. Any Idea what angle the primary bevel can be taken down to. Does the Brass rod test apply.Thanks

I posted this question in the old forum. Sorry
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Old 06-24-2004, 12:56 PM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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It will be tough to fill both of those desires (thin blade AND heavy chopping) I would suggest that by using a more common steel such as 5160, 1060, or even a mild steel head with a high carbon bit forge welded in, and adjusting the grind to match (such as a very fine convex grind) you would have more success.
When your talking about producing a chopper with a very thin blade, you have to understand that there will some "give and take". Basically, your the only one who can make the decisions as to whether you want to give up some thinness for durability sake, or is the thinness and light weight more important......in which case your going to give up some of the durability. It's always a balancing act with edge tools, and although we have come a long way, there are still drawbacks that must be accepted within a design.


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Old 06-24-2004, 04:09 PM
Wulf Wulf is offline
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Ed,
Have you ever had any experience with S7 steel? I have a few old jackhammer spade bits that I believe to be of S7, and at some point I hope to get around to forging them into ax blades. Given the purported shock resistance of this steel, I would imagine that a properly heat treated ax blade in S7 might perform pretty well, but I have no experience to confirm or deny this...


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Old 06-24-2004, 06:43 PM
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Ed Caffrey Ed Caffrey is offline
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S-7 and S-5 both will work great for axes/hatchets. As I mentioned before, it's all about matching the steel, with the grind, with the heat treatment that makes everything work. The tough part is figuring all of that out..........which usually means tearing a few up until you find out what works best for you.


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Old 06-25-2004, 10:26 AM
Wulf Wulf is offline
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Thanks Ed.

I've got three of these things, so hopefully it won't take me until the fourth attempt to get it right.


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