Dixon's Tomahawk

I bought a tomahawk at Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop in Kempton, PA about 10 years ago. For the past few years I've used it as a garden tool. The relatively thin blade chops through the wood on my property well.

The edge had gotten dinged up pretty badly from hitting pebbles. Today I went out and bought a couple of new files to resharpen it. The blade is fairly soft, so with the sharp new files it didn't take me long to get the edge repaired. I then taped a sheet of 150 grit sandpaper on top of a mousepad to my workbench, and polished it up. I wound up with a nice convex edge. The 'hawk will now slice newspaper.

While I was working on the 'hawk I decided to wrap the handle with paracord. I left a gap of exposed wood as a grasping surface, because I thought it might be too thick if I wrapped the whole thing. At the bottom I drilled a hole through the handle and made a wrist loop.

I took her out back and whacked a few things. Big improvement. Here are a couple of pictures.





I have an Ontario 12" machete and a Cold Steel Trail Hawk on order. It'll be interesting to see how they compare as choppers.

Edited to add:
It weighs 1 lb. 7 oz. Total length is 18-3/8", and the edge is 4".