Watch: Forging an Axe From a Block of Steel

This video isn’t as succinct as the one where the guy forges a tomahawk from a wrench, but this project also involves a whole lot more work. We watch as he takes a block of steel and transforms it into a good, solid, working hatchet.

I like everything he did except for the handle.

Among the good things we see are how he works the steel to shape the axe head and especially the forming of the eye (handle hole). Pretty nice. At one point he even uses another hatchet to split the front edge of the head, and then he forge-welds a piece of harder steel in there to form the cutting edge.

I love it.

Sadly, when he installed the handle, he left it sticking way up past the top of the axe head. What the heck? It is supposed to be trimmed flush with the top of the head. That way, the steel wedge will be doing something useful by forcing the wood against the interior of the eye, rather than splitting the exposed wood.

But that’s really a minor detail. I have installed plenty of handles in axes and hammers, but I’ve never forged anything from a hunk of steel. So hats off to Torbjörn Åhman!

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.