Shane Wink
Well-Known Member
I am looking to start making a few throwing hawks for the local royal rangers group and we will be hosting their spring camping trip at my pond and camp. Part of their regular activities is hawk throwing and since I dont have one I decided to make a few for myself and a few as prizes for the boys.
I forged a couple as gifts and have a pic of just one of them. I made the drift for it but have since lost it however I purchased a new drift from blacksmith depot so I am good there. I am planning to wrap the outer skin around the drift then weld in the high carbon cutting edge. My questions are:
How long and wide does the starting blade (portion in front of the eye) need to be? I am guessing 1/4" thick by 1.5 wide outer lower carbon to form the eye with the outer skin and a 1/4" by 1.5 by 3" long piece for forming the actual head. Thats 3/4 think in front of the eye but I figured with drawing out the face, grinding and decarb it would be about right for a 6-7" overall head. How does this sound?
For the high carbon insert I have 1075, 1084, 1095,5160 and 52100 which would you suggest? I have a nice oven setup with accurate thermocouples and the correct oils for the above steels. I also have a couple of randon pattern flatstock I made to use as the wrap on one of them but since it is 1080/15n20 I was going to use the 1084 piece for it since the heat treat and normalizing would be the same. All the others would be made from mild steel wraps with a HC piece inserted to the eye for easier welding.
Here is the first one I forged two years ago for a friend.
I forged a couple as gifts and have a pic of just one of them. I made the drift for it but have since lost it however I purchased a new drift from blacksmith depot so I am good there. I am planning to wrap the outer skin around the drift then weld in the high carbon cutting edge. My questions are:
How long and wide does the starting blade (portion in front of the eye) need to be? I am guessing 1/4" thick by 1.5 wide outer lower carbon to form the eye with the outer skin and a 1/4" by 1.5 by 3" long piece for forming the actual head. Thats 3/4 think in front of the eye but I figured with drawing out the face, grinding and decarb it would be about right for a 6-7" overall head. How does this sound?
For the high carbon insert I have 1075, 1084, 1095,5160 and 52100 which would you suggest? I have a nice oven setup with accurate thermocouples and the correct oils for the above steels. I also have a couple of randon pattern flatstock I made to use as the wrap on one of them but since it is 1080/15n20 I was going to use the 1084 piece for it since the heat treat and normalizing would be the same. All the others would be made from mild steel wraps with a HC piece inserted to the eye for easier welding.
Here is the first one I forged two years ago for a friend.