This was the first axe that I made, and I got the idea from when I had made a larger sword for my friend for Christmas. I was cutting out the handle, and before I cut out a section, I realized that it was already in the shape of a hatchet.

So I started with a similar sketch as the handle, and just left in part of it for the blade. I have a picture of it, but I didn’t realize how poor the quality was. So here’s a picture of the axe after I cleaned it up a little.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted it to look like, so I started looking up different hatchet designs, and I landed on this.

I had decided after this that I actually made have made the head of the hatchet too long, to fill in the extra space, I decided I would burn in an image, and to have that image bordered by a design so that it came out more ornate.

I also found some nice metallic black acryllic paint. I had seen a technique called dry brushing that people had used on props before. So I decided that when  I got to finishing it up, I’d give it a shot. Before I got to that though, I had to do the burning on the other side. I knew that I might have some trouble with replicating the image, so I decided to just do a different one. So, going with the whole forest theme, I burned in a deer.

Then now that the burning was done, I painted the rest black, like the other side, and began to try out dry brushing on a lighter silver over top of the black.

I was worried after I brushed on the first bit, because it looked strange to me, but I blended it in more and it came out looking really nice. It definitely has the old weathered look I was going for.

Then I used some red oak stain that I had, and finished up the handle

Definitely one of my favorite things I’ve made so far. Also, one of the most time consuming. I think from start to finish I spent about 8 hours making it, not including the time it took for things to dry.