Emberhawk Hand Forged Damascus Tomahawk Axe | 20 Inch | Rosewood Handle with Leather Blade Cover and Gift Box | Hunting Camping Collector Gift | RK-404

The Emberhawk is a tomahawk axe with a layered Damascus head, a 6 inch head length and 5.5 inches of cutting edge, hung on a 20 inch rosewood handle. It is light in the hand for its length, which is the whole idea behind the pattern, and the bit is ground to bite rather than bounce. It ships in a gift box with a leather cover over the edge. A tomahawk and a Norse axe do different jobs, and Viking axe against tomahawk explains which is which.

The tomahawk is not a Norse tool and it is worth being straight about that. The word comes into English from Powhatan, an Algonquian language of the Virginia tidewater, where tamahaac meant a cutting tool. The original heads were stone or antler. What happened next is one of the odder stories in tool history: European traders realised that a light iron head was the single most wanted item in the fur trade, and by the seventeenth century English, French and Dutch workshops were producing hawk heads specifically for that market. The pattern that resulted, a small light head on a long straight handle, was refined by two continents at once and ended up on frontier belts, in colonial militia kit and eventually in modern military use. It is a genuinely hybrid object.

Forged and finished in the Czech Republic. It ships with a leather blade cover, a gift box and protective packaging.

Specifications

What makes a tomahawk a tomahawk

Three things separate this pattern from a hatchet or a bearded axe, and all three follow from the same decision: keep the head light.

The first is the head to handle ratio. A hatchet puts a heavy head on a short handle and relies on mass to do the work. A tomahawk puts a light head on a long handle and relies on speed instead. Because kinetic energy rises with the square of velocity, a light head moving fast at the end of a 20 inch haft delivers a surprising amount of force while staying easy to control and easy to carry all day.

The second is the eye. A traditional hawk head has a tapered eye, wider at the top than the bottom, and the handle is pushed up through it from below and wedged by the taper alone. No glue, no steel wedge, no epoxy. That means a broken handle can be knocked out and replaced in the field with nothing but a fresh piece of wood and a knife, which is exactly why the design spread among people who were a very long way from a workshop.

The third is balance in flight. A light head on a long straight haft rotates predictably, which is why hawks throw so much better than hatchets. The centre of mass sits close to the head and the handle acts as the tail. If you intend to throw this one, learn distance before you learn force, and expect the handle rather than the head to be the part that eventually needs replacing.

Why Damascus and not stainless

This is forge welded Damascus: two carbon steels, 1095 and 15N20, bonded at welding heat and worked down together as one bar before the head is shaped from it. The 1095 provides hardness and edge holding, the 15N20 provides toughness and the bright line in the pattern, and an etch at the end brings the layers to the surface. At 58 to 60 HRC the edge holds well past what a soft head would manage.

Stainless is essentially never used for axe heads and there is a real reason for it. The chromium that makes steel corrosion resistant also makes it much harder to get hardness and impact toughness at the same time, and an axe head takes shock loads that would chip a hard stainless edge. Carbon steel, and pattern welded carbon steel in particular, gives you both. The cost is that it wants a wipe of oil and the leather cover on the bit when it is put away. That comparison in full is in Damascus versus stainless.

The rosewood handle

Rosewood carries the weight of this piece without adding bulk. It is dense and tight grained, which is exactly what a long haft wants: the density damps the shock that travels back to your hand at impact, and the closed grain resists the splitting that starts around the eye on a softer timber. Every handle is shaped from a different piece of stock, so the figure and the colour shift from one to the next.

Feed it with oil once or twice a year. This is not optional maintenance on an axe. A haft that dries out shrinks, and a shrunken haft lets the head move, and a moving head is how axes fail. Keep it out of direct sun and out of a dry heated room over a long winter. The method is shown in wooden handle care.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On a hawk the cheek of the head is the obvious surface, and a rune line running down the haft is the second most requested placement. See the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Three things: file the edge, oil the head, oil the handle. Miss the third and the head loosens in a dry winter, which is the most common way a good axe stops being a good axe.

For the edge, a file does more in two minutes than a stone does in ten. Clamp the head, work along the bevel following the curve of the bit, and stop before you flatten it. Finish on a fine stone or a puck. Do not chase a razor polish, because a fine apex chips on a knot. After use, wipe the head dry, put a light film of oil on it and replace the leather cover. Surface rust lifts with fine abrasive and oil rather than aggressive grinding. Both routines are covered in steel care and sharpening with a whetstone.

Made in the Czech Republic

The work behind this piece happens in a Czech Republic workshop that has kept to the old methods. Steel is forged and heat treated by hand, the grind is taken down by eye rather than by machine, and the handle, fittings and sheath are cut and finished one at a time. Because of that, every piece carries small marks of the hand that made it.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import direct, check each piece when it reaches us, and ship from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Engraving is added here in the United States after arrival, so the piece you receive is finished to your order.

A note on handmade variation

The Emberhawk is hand forged. It is not machine made and it is not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page. On a Damascus head the variation is more visible than on a plain one, because the pattern is drawn out and folded by hand and lands differently on every piece, and the etch takes differently depending on how the surface finished.

The rosewood carries its own grain and colour because it grew that way, and the exact curve of the bit is drawn by eye. The dimensions, the steel, the hardness and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Is a tomahawk any good as a camp tool or is it just for throwing

It is a genuine camp tool. The light head and long haft make it fast and accurate for limbing, kindling and shelter work, and it carries far more comfortably than a hatchet. What it will not do is split heavy seasoned rounds.

Can the handle be replaced if it breaks

Yes, and that is a design feature rather than a compromise. The head comes off the top of the tapered eye, so a new haft can be fitted without heat, glue or special tools.

How does this differ from the bearded axes in the range

A bearded axe has a heavier head with a deeper edge hanging below the eye and is built for wood work and carving. This is lighter, longer in the handle and faster, and it throws far better.

Will the Damascus pattern survive being used

Yes. The pattern is the structure of the steel and goes all the way through the head, so sharpening and use will not remove it. Heavy scuffing dulls the etch, and it can be re etched.

Is it safe to throw at a wooden target

It will hold a line in a target board. Throwing is hard on any axe, mostly because a miss puts the handle into the edge of the board, so expect to re haft it eventually if you throw regularly. Follow a proper safety setup and distance.

Does it come ready to give as a gift

Yes. It arrives in a gift box with a leather cover over the bit and can be wrapped as it is. A name, a date or a rune line on the cheek is the usual addition.

What is in the box

• One Emberhawk Damascus tomahawk axe
• Leather blade cover
• Gift box
• Protective packaging
• Care notes for carbon steel and an oiled handle
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See the rest of the Viking axes, the Viking knives and the Bowie knives if you want a blade to carry alongside it. Sharpening, hanging and steel care sit in the guides.