A friend asked me to make a toy battle ax for her son. I think I will stick with the toy cars and
kid furniture. Toy weapons are different
and I will explain a little later.
As with most projects I wanted to try something new. This was going to be the handle. I was going to try to do a para cord
wrap. The ax is pretty straight forward. It is an oak handle that is about 1 ½”
square. The blade is two pieces of beech
and measures 20” across. I made a template
of blade and cut them out. The edge is
sanded down with a ¼” flat so it is not sharp.
I took a wide board and put a dado in it the width of the narrow part of
the blade and ½ the thickness. By
ripping the board in half and gluing it together I had the mortise to put the
blade in. I narrowed the handle with a
spiral bit and the router. Just a plug
for Triton, I really like their router set up with the work center. It will be sad when my son collects his
winnings.
Once I had all the parts profiled the way I wanted, I dry
fitted it together. There was one area
that was a little tight. I was removing
the blade of the ax and it came out of the mortise and the corner hit my finger
next to the nail. It removed the flesh
that was next to the nail. This is worst
woodworking injury that I have sustained so far. It kind of put a damper on the rest of the
day. My wife asked if I need to go to
urgent care. My response was that there
was nothing to sew back together. It
actually has been healing quickly. It is
just sensitive.
The handle was fun to do.
I think it came out ok. I could
not get the top knots to look good, but the handle I liked. My kids saw it and wanted to hold it and I
let them. It was too heavy for my
youngest. My oldest (9 years old) swung
it and I said that is enough and I will take it now. It seriously scared me. The ax has some heft to it. I would liken it to a bat with a dull blade
attached. The blade will break bones
before it breaks. I did round off the
corners that caused my injury but it still scared me. When making toy weapons, I think I just make
blunt weapons.
My kids now want one, and they will not get one.
