Cold Steel Pipe Hawk Mod (pic heavy)

Joined
Dec 30, 2010
Messages
78
My first post here :) Below is a pictorial tutorial on how I turned my $28 taiwanese drop-forged Cold Steel 'pipe hawk' into a smokeable, traditional looking hawk to rival hand-forged hawks costing 10x more.

First, I used paint stripper to strip off all the ugly black paint:
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Which revealed a very rough, uneven and unfinished texture:
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I then used an angle-grinder with an 80 grit sanding disc followed by a paint-removing wheel to smooth out the finish and some of the uneven areas from the forging process:
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I then laid out the pattern for the filework with a sharpie:
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I cheated by cutting out most of the filework with a dremel cutoff wheel, then I did the finish work with round and 90 degree files. I had to anneal the pipe head to make it soft enough to drill out - I step drilled it on a drill press. Unfortunately I broke off a 1/8" bit right as it drilled through, which took me about an hour using several punches to drift it out. I then polished the hawk using a dremel polishing wheel, followed by steel wool w/flitz polish and finally a rag w/flitz. Here is the finished product:
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All that is left to do on the head is to weld-in the set screw hole. I plan to force a patina on the carbon steel, then fit a pre-drilled curly maple handle from RE davis: http://www.redaviscompany.com/0310.html

I haven't decided if I want to do silver wire inlay (which I've done before) or if I should try my hand at pewter inlay. The pewter would be cheaper.
 
Nice work, did you re heat treat the head?
Smaller pics would be good. ;-))

Best regards

Robin
 
WOW!!! :eek::eek:

That is VERY cool :cool:

Nice work! :thumbup:
 
Nicely done! i have a trailhawk that I've been thinking about re-finishing with filework similer to what you've done here. Love the polish on the bowl!
 
I was just dreaming of laying out some file work on my new trailhawk I started yesterday. I was going to do it the same way. :D
 
Nice work, did you re heat treat the head?
Smaller pics would be good. ;-))

Best regards

Robin

I only annealed the bowl, so the heat treat on the blade should remain - the blade was buried in ice-sand while I heated th bowl cherry red, then let it cool slowly in hot sand - I'm sure the blade never got above ~350 F.
 
That is hands down the most beautiful mod-job I've ever seen.

... Ever.

I worship your tomahawk.
 
Yeah I cannot see the pics either. I like picasa for posting pics on forums like this. :( Easy to use.
 
I'd really like to see them. Getting my Pipe Hawk Tuesday. Would like to see what you've done.
 
jdj livefreeordie, all of your pics are gone. Since I own a CS pipehawk and have done some mods, I would like to see pics of yours.
 
success seeing the pics! lol, what a joke (photobucket, 2 months later)

Nice job on the design of the hawk!
 
so glad you reposted the pics! that is beatiful! any tips for a fellow pipe hawker? im thinking of puting in some of those notches and stripping the piant.
 
Awesome work man! Can't wait to tweak my pipe hawk. I'm going crazy because I don't have a bench with a vice which means I'll have to hold off on and filing. Oh well, since it's my first I'll just consider it my work in progress, and try any ideas I have on it.
 
Sorry the pics were down for a while - I was out of the country for a few weeks and I must have exceeded my free bandwidth on photobucket.

Update: I had a friend weld in the set-screw hole and finished polishing the head last night. I'll be forcing a dark patina w/hot vinegar tonight and I'll post pics later.

For the handle: I purchased a curly maple drilled handle from Dunlap Woodcrafts which I fitted to the handle (very painstaking - used an inletting compound and gradually scraped down the high spots with a furniture scraper). I'm working on laying out a pattern for pewter inlay on the handle and then to the staining and oil finish. I'll post pics along the way of the handle progress as well, though this will probably take a long time as I'm rather busy lately.

JDJ
 
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