Dave Budd Hawk - [Mini Review added]

[Dave]

Bought this recently from a Member, and tarted it up a bit.

Head only weighs 340g. Its a very nicely made axe head.

Nice profile for side splitting logs.

Scorched the 11" oak handle and knocked together a quick sheath out of split leather, and copper rivets. [Im out of veg tan.] Than pyrography and acrylic leather paint put Daves iron age dog, on a background of red ochre.


I've ordered a nice 19" hickory tomahawk handle. and am thinking of using a wedge and sprig on the bigger hickory handle but unsure yet.

 

[Clouston98]

Great stuff! Lovely bit of kit!

 

[Dave]

Cheers Cam.

 

[sunndog]

That looks better dave.....nice little hawk mate

 

[Dave]

Cheers sunndog ��

 

[Dave Budd]

Good to see that head getting some love and hopefully use

I do like the cover you made for it too. very in keeping with the tomahawk style with a cracking looking picture on it!





I've got a couple more that will go up for sale later today as it happens....

 

[Dave]

Cheers Dave. Glad you like it.

I had the surform and some sandpaper on a 18 " hickory handle this morning.

 

[Dave]

I had some well seasoned scots pine, [which can be hard stuff on blades,] to process for my titanium goat small wi-fi stove, as well as a bit of beech and birch. Some of it with a diameter as large as 9-10cm.

Click for larger photos.


The optimum length for the kindling to fit inside the small wifi stove is 25cm long. [Any longer and you have it spitting out at your sil tent.]


At one point, my hatchet came loose. [My own fault, as when I first got it I had decided to thin out the handle using the surform, until i could push the head up the handle, in the traditional tomahawk fashion, instead of the reverse, as you would do with an axe handle. I'll be getting some more hickory, and carving the top, to slide the axe down onto the shoulder of the handle, then wedging it]

But It was an interesting test, and I was impressed, as it was an easy 10 minute field repair with a lump of wood, used as a mallet to fix it.
And it kept on going then and didnt fail.



I've never used such a light a hatchet or axe, where you fall into such an easy rhythm and keep going without fatigue.

Even found some nice fat wood



About 80 kindling sticks, processed in a relatively short time, will take maybe 9 hours to burn in the small wifi.


So thats 4 nights supply, at a couple of hours per night, to cook and warm up, before you crawl into your bag.

The Budd Hawk will become a regular part of my lightweight kit, and compliments the golite 5, and wifi stove, very nicely for UK winter conditions. With an 18inch hickory handle, two metal wedges in it weighs just 465grams. So half the weight of the GB wildlife hatchet, and it punches above its weight.

This is the first tomahawk Ive used, and Im sold on the concept. Great little thing.



I was very impressed with the edge retention as well, Im sure with ten minutes strop time, it'll be shaving hairs off my arm again.

And of course, it can be great fun to throw at the odd wandering Yeti who stumbles into camp.

 

[Dave]

Finished the hawk. Polished the head. Oak and metal wedge. Made a new sheath out of veg tan leather, waxed, dyed, with welt. 3.5mm thick. The lanyard and sheath cord, is thick paracord used to throw vehicles out of airplanes. [Difficult to get hold of] Tied with a simple clove hitch.

 

[Dave]

Messing around with my tools today, I cut down a 7.5" diameter pine with a duluth folding bucksaw and split it nicely down the middle, making a couple of notches with the budd hawk to begin with, using a lump of wood as mallet, then proceeded to split the log down the pith using a couple of lightweight plastic wedges.
Log was just under 6 feet long.