Prototype: Hatchet Blade Cover

Second prototype and final design

   So, in the introduction to this blog I had mentioned that I would be posting all kinds of information related to prepping. Since I've done some posts on what prepping is all about, and also some information on gear and supplies, I've decided to post some info on a project I'm working on. This post will be more in-depth and considerably longer than my previous posts. I will include pictures and some basic instruction on what I've done.
   So, a bit of a rundown: The project we're working on is a hatchet blade cover. In the past I carried a hatchet in my bush pack, however I switched to carrying a machete last summer and haven't used the hatchet in a while. Machetes are great versatile and lightweight tools, but the hatchet is just much better at some jobs. I planned on going for a hike to try and track down some fatwood and decided I'd break out the ol' hatchet. I gave it a really nice sharpening and then encountered a problem; I haven't packed the hatchet in a while and it never came with any decent kind of blade guard or sheath. So I decided I needed to make one so I wouldn't destroy the other gear in my pack.
   Normally a person would make a sheath out of leather. Since I'm not a leather worker - nor do I have scrap leather kicking around my house - I decided to use what I did have. I headed out to my shed and grabbed some scrap wood. Wondering how I was going to carve a narrow curved channel into some relatively narrow wood, I thought maybe my circular saw blade had roughly the same curvature, a quick side-by-side of my hatchet to the saw blade showed it to be pretty close.

Hard to show the channel cut, this is
as close as I could get.

   First I drilled two holes through either end of the board to secure it to my work bench, then set it with wood screws. Once secure to the bench I marked out roughly the length of my blade and the overall length I wanted. To get the channel where my blade would rest I made a series of lengthwise cuts, tapering at either end, in the center (not so much) of the board. This gave me a long shallow valley ranging from halfway through the board at the peaks on either end, to about three quarters of the way through at the deepest point. To smooth out the roughness on the inside of the guard I simply used either side of the channel as a blade stop and moved the blade of the circular saw side to side through the cut. After the blade rest area was all carved out, and cleaned up as well as I could with the saw, I cut off the excess board from either side bringing my guard closer to final length.

Body and hardware ready to be assembled.
A fresh coat of varnish to help protect
the wood in the field.

   Next I needed hardware to secure the hatchet in the guard. I recently salvaged some hex key bolts and threaded knobs that would help me test this prototype. I thought that having two knobs sticking out of the side would be kind of bulky and figured it would double my chances of having it catch on things in my pack, so I opted to use a threaded insert to double as a rest for the underside of the blade. With my hatchet placed in the guard I marked where I would need to drill to have the bolts hold the top and bottom of the axe head firmly in place. I then marked another hole to be drilled on the top of the guard to make a sliding channel to allow the blade to be inserted and removed. Since I was drilling through two thin sides I used wedges in the channel to prevent blowout and started with a smaller than need bit and gradually increased the size to avoid splitting the wood. After all the wholes were drilled I carved out the remaining wood in the sliding channel and smoothed everything out with medium grit sandpaper.

The other side of the final assembly.

All varnished and hardware installed.
Ready to go on the hatchet.

   After loosely assembling the hardware in the body I inserted the axe head. Using a hex key and the friction of the threaded insert in it's hole, I tightened the bottom to a snug (not tight) fit. Making sure the underside of the axe head was resting on the threaded insert, I slid the top bolt down its channel to rest on the top of the axe head and tightened it up. Making adjustments to the lower bolt to eliminate side to side play, then filed down the sides of the extrusion from the insert to be cut off. Using a rotary tool with a cutting disk made cutting and smoothing the end of the bolt quick and easy. I reassembled everything to make sure it wasn't a fluke that it had worked then took it all apart again for a coat of protective varnish. After letting it dry overnight I reassembled everything for a field test.

Much more bulky than a leather sheath
but not bad for what I had laying around.

   I was afraid that I would catch the knob or overhang on stuff in my pack, but it actually didn't snag nearly as bad as predicted. After carrying it for a while, the first time I took the hatchet out it hadn't loosened or shifted at all, in fact it hadn't even after removing and replacing it several times during the hike. I used the hatchet quite a few times during and never found it to be irritating to remove and replace the guard.

A nice snug fit. No up and down
or side to side play.

   Considering this was only the second prototype I made, and the first of this design, I think this is a pretty solid build. There are a couple of improvements I will make on the final build (whenever I get to that): Firstly I'd like to make the closing knob lower profile, possibly a more slender wooden knob with a nut set in the center. Since this was the best hardware I had at the time it worked out surprisingly well, but if it was less protruding it would be better. Secondly, the overall size of the guard could be cut down a bit. I spent time rounding the corners and edges with a wood rasp and sandpaper, but I think there could be a little more taken off the outside front face to make it more round and slimmer. The last major issue I have with this build is that, since I did this freehand with a circular saw, the channel isn't centered or evenly cut through the whole piece. When I get a table saw I will experiment with making a more centered channel that will taper in from the back edge to the depth of the valley in the channel. Overall, I'm very happy with how this piece of gear turned out. For only a couple of hours worth of work it's already passed the test on it's first field trial. You probably noticed there were no measurements or precise instructions included here, that's because I didn't make any. I did this entirely on the fly only as a test, so in the future when I get to build the final version I will do another post complete with all the build instructions.

Smooth insertion and removal.

   I hope you've found this post to be of value to your prepping. I'm sure the post on the finished piece will be much more useful with full instruction, but I built it without having even this much information so you could easily make it. Some people may just say "Why would I do this when I can go out and buy a sheath?" To which I will answer; do that if you want, but wouldn't it be handy to know how to make one out of scrap just in case? If you do decide to make one, drop a comment in the comment section and let me know how it goes. Have any ideas on how I could make this one better? Lemme know. Made a sheath or some other accessory for your hatchet or axe? Drop a comment down below. As always, I hope you all enjoyed the post, and until next time. Be Prepared. Be Safe. Have Fun.