Great thread. I recently got a tomahawk (CS Spike) after reading James Fenimore Cooper's Deerslayer. Wish I hadn't waited so long. As others have said, the handle fit was more than crappy (they "mashed" it on) and that black glossy paint. Wow, that has to go! After stripping what to do? I have used patinas (vinegar, mustard, etc), on a number of knives in the past but I wanted to try something different. I came across a discussion of peroxide & salt-based rust bluing over on the Bushcraft website:
http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php/16456-Rust-bluing-A-tutorial
Basically, you heat hydrogen peroxide to boiling (standard brown bottle pharmacy 3% stuff), add salt (I used Kosher so no additives) until the peroxide is supersaturated (no more salt disolves). Add metal to be "rusted" (man does it rust, it will freak you the F out!!!), take out and brush to even out areas, place back in H2O2/salt bath and redo rusting, take out and brush...Repeat until there is a nice even rust. Then you boil the rusted metal in distilled water and it magically turns "black/blue" (the chemistry of the magic is: Ferrous Oxide (red rust) is converted to Ferric Oxide (black/blue rust) by the application of heat for the geeks in the crowd). You can go back and repeat peroxide/salt --> distilled water until happy with coating. See pic below for progression on how this looks:
Finish out with some fine steel wool. I'm pretty happy with how the bluing turned out. Will see how durable and rust-resistant it is. Here's a couple shots of the finished 'hawk. I stripped the handle, fitted it to the head, stained with dark walnut and put on a few coats of tung oil. I tried my hand at using a needle file on the set screw hole, was pretty fun. I now have a whole new respect for some of the metal work I see here...
I have also read some questions about how the CS Spike looks vs the CRKT version (Woods Kangee). Since 2 is 1 and 1 is none, I also got a CRKT
Here's a couple side by side shots:
The CRKT is much heavier and is better assembled/fitted. The CS is much more agile in the hand (quick swinging and does OK at fine work). The CRKT seems to be a bit better as a chopper. Will have to play around some more with them.