How much should someone expect to pay for a small custom Tomohawk?Know any good makers?

Instead of a custom axe I'd personally look for an original and fit it with a nice handle and use that.

For example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Antique-Fr...&hash=item2a0f1ed5e6

They are for sale reasonably often on bladeforums.com. Here's one that is currently for sale by the maker......tomahawk.......oops, it sold as I was posting this. Price was $175.

That's a badass tomahawk!!!! Wow, too cool. I wonder if it would work well for throwing?

Red

Ones without a hammer head are considerably cheaper.

I think Mark's idea of buying an old authentic one is really excellent.

Deathwind lives on...........

bio

One story about him is when he and others were in a stockade and under Indian attack, the Indians dug a tunned under the log walls and as they emerged, Deathwind tomahawked them, drug their bodies out of the way quickly and waited for the next head to emerge. Mentioned in the bio above in passing was his amazing ability to run and reload at the same time, apparently he was incredibly fast at doing so, a skill that was a life saver on the American West of that era.

I wonder if he was inspiration for Mel Gibson's character in The Patriot

I have several HB forge tomahawks, this one I purchased in 1974. This model of tomahawk has been an excellent chopper, has enough weight to make a deep cut in wood. It functions excellently as a light axe. When I talked to the Maker at HB forge, whose name I forgot to write down, this tomahawk was probably made when he had Amish blacksmiths working for him. That period ended in 1975. Since then all tomahawks have been made by the owner of HB forge.

The laminated bit is a wedge of 1095 steel, but it is not as hard as it could be. The maker tempers the wedge to 40-45 rockwell. His reason was that if it got much harder it is hard to use a file to sharpen. HB forge said that 40-45 rockwell was the hardness of a standard double bitted axe. The rest of the head is 1018 steel. I think the laminated construction is a great idea though I would have preferred the insert to be heat treated to a higher rockwell.

I have never handled a period original tomahawk, but it makes sense that the heads could have been made from two different steels, one hard and one tough. Steel was so expensive and high carbon cutlery grade steel even more so.

I must have thrown this thing a thousand or two times. The wood shaft head is a bit busted from all the poor throws, but it is still all together.

I added bicycle handlebar tape to see how it would feel.
http://www.hbforge.com/






Recently I picked up a Polaris Tomahawk by 2 Hawks. This is lighter than the HB forge, very fast in the hand, and would be an excellent fighting hawk, in my opinion. I have not tried to chop with it but being light it probably will not be as good a chopper as the heavier HB forge version.

The Polaris arrives very sharp and the upper and lower edges are sharpened, it is very easy to cut yourself on this tomahawk. The shaft is very smooth and I love the flame hardening colors on the wood.
http://www.2hawks.net/

that two hawks one is sweet. I have only thrown an axe maybe 20 times in my whole life, and never a tomahawk, just my regular chopping axes. So maybe this is wrong but I thought I read that for throwing the heavier the axe head a person could handle the batter they stick? it seems with the shape of the top of the 2 hawks, and sharpened that way, it's going to stick where other axes wouldn't. very cool

Red

i just recieved a SOG tomahawk from cheaper than dirt..... i had read long ago that some special ops outfits carried such weapons in the viet nam war........ anyone know anything about this?????????????????????

life is short.....