I had the pleasure of doing a day's axe forging at the Oldfield Forge near Hereford last summer. It's taken me until now to find the time to heat treat it (ran out of time on the day 'cos I had a dinner date ) so, now it's hafted, I thought I'd tell you about it!
There were a number of forging courses running though the day; everyone else was doing knife forging or similar, I was forging an axe. That meant that I got 1:1 tuition for the day. It's an excellent environment, great facilities, and great staff. The day doesn't finish at a specific time but when you complete your project - it was my fault I ran out of time
I have a lot of axes of varying styles, so I wanted to try something different; I chose to make a Bearded Axe. OK, the result isn't pretty, nor is it perfect, but I made it
It started with a lump of steel about 100mm x 70 x 70mm - through manual hammering with large hammers (a new process to me) and a press forge I turned it into a passable axe.
In process
The press
The completed axe
There were a number of forging courses running though the day; everyone else was doing knife forging or similar, I was forging an axe. That meant that I got 1:1 tuition for the day. It's an excellent environment, great facilities, and great staff. The day doesn't finish at a specific time but when you complete your project - it was my fault I ran out of time
I have a lot of axes of varying styles, so I wanted to try something different; I chose to make a Bearded Axe. OK, the result isn't pretty, nor is it perfect, but I made it
It started with a lump of steel about 100mm x 70 x 70mm - through manual hammering with large hammers (a new process to me) and a press forge I turned it into a passable axe.
In process
The press
The completed axe