Doomsday Axes

This is a fun project I started after a random trip to the local hardware store. These are ridiculous by inherent design, and not intended to be used for anything other than conversation pieces or dank memes.

PLEASE NOTE, I am only including the instructions on how to make the Doomsday Ax heads in this Instructable. I will be making another Instructable in the near future focusing on making just the handles.

While these are intended to be props, they are still fairly sharp and should be treated with the same respect as a real live ax or hatchet. Use is not recommended as the steel in a saw blade is fairly hard and you may break off blade teeth, with some risk of injury from flying metal shards.

The tools to be used also have certain risks inherent to their design. Please make sure your tools are in good condition, and that you have the required experience and safety equipment needed to use them properly.

Leather Gloves

Welder's Mask

N95 Particulate Mask, 3M style is the best, IMO, but disposables will work

Apron, either leather or some Flame Resistant material

Heavy Cotton Shirt or Welders Jacket

Hearing Protection

Safety Glasses

Face Shield

Pants

Boots

MIG or TIG Welder, 120v or greater

Angle Grinder With cutoff wheels and regular grinding disks

Steel File

Vice (Not absolutely required, but really nice if you have one)

Wire Brush

Ball Peen Hammer

Straight Edge

Marker

Pliars

1 10 inch (or larger) circular saw blade

1 3/16 inch X 3/4 inch X 48 inch bar of mild steel

1 2 inch OD steel pipe, 6 inch piece will work from the hardware store. Make sure it is not galvanized or cast iron.

The exact dimensions are not that critical, as you will be eyeballing most of this anyway. The only major thing is don't get a blade under 10 inches in diameter, or it will look really small.

Using the straight edge, mark a line down the center of the blade. I used the expansion gaps provided on my blade as helpful guides. The important thing is to not split a tooth. Make sure your cut goes between the teeth.

Trace a section of the blade to cut out. This notch only serves to help up the "cool" factor of the finished ax, so exact placement and shape of the cut out is up to you. Don't go to close to the teeth, or you may have bending issues later on.

Once you are satisfied with your design, clamp the blade half into the vice and cut it out. Use the steel file to carefully de-burr the cut edge.

If you want both axes to look the same, use the half you just cut as a template to trace onto the other.

CAUTION! Make sure you flip the other half over so that the teeth are facing the same way. Otherwise, one ax will look awkward. And that my friends, will not do when the hordes of the undead are storming your house.

Once you finish tracing the notch onto the second half, repeat step 2. Don't forget to de-burr the cut edge when you are done.

Feel free at this time to use the steel file to get the cut edges to match as closely as possible.

If you look at the little diagram I made, you can see about what we are planning on doing. The red lines are the cut lines. The easiest way to cut this, is to clamp the pipe into the vice, use the marker to mark your cuts, and cut your way towards the vice. The angle is optional, if you don't feel like cutting it, feel free to make it straight.

Once you have cut these two pieces, make sure you de-burr them. If you want, you can also use the file to clean up your angles a bit.

Once they are nice and clean, either crush them a little bit in the vise, or use the hammer to flatten them a little. Not too much, just enough to make them oval as you see in the third picture.

Alright! You made it this far, hopefully with all your fingers! Now comes the fun part; starting to put this together.

I used the file to make a little centering notch in the tube end, just to make it a little easier. Don't go crazy laying down metal at this stage.

The saw blade is really thin, and may warp as you tack it, just use the pliers to carefully bend it back into place, and make sure that it is straight with the tube as shown in the little diagram. Also, it is really easy to burn right through the blade, so don't rush this part.

Get them as close to the same as possible...

The exact length of these will be determined by the shape and size of your notch, and the angle you tacked the blade to the tube. Mine were 6 3/4 inches long, but your required length may be different. Simple place the bar against your ax head, like in the first image, and decide how you want it to look, mark the length, and cut 4 bars the same length.

You will then bend the bars to look like in image 2, the bars are red. Mild steel bends very easily, and you should be able to bend it in your vice. Try to get all 4 bars looking the same.

Weld the bars you just bent in the previous step to flat sides of the tube. Again, don't feel like you have to tow the Titanic off the bottom of the sea with this weld, you may still need to do a little bending to keep everything straight after you get it tacked into place initially.

Once you are satisfied with the placement of the support bars, weld the free ends to the blade. Again, be careful with the thin steel of the blade. I accidentally got it a little too hot and had to do some repair work.

When we are knee deep in zombies, the last thing we want to worry about is the strength of our homemade junkyard weapons.

To that end, I added supports to the original tack weld. These pieces are just straight sections of metal left over from the first set of supports. There are four of them, about 2 inches long. At this time, add any additional welds you feel are needed to keep this together.

My welds got a little gross looking, due to being unfamiliar with welding thin metal and a mysterious fault in the gas flow of my MIG gun. So I became a grinder for a few minutes and cleaned up my welds a little.

If you are an amazing welder, you may not have to clean up at all.

I chose to leave the metal raw, but you may choose to paint it. At this point, you're all done! I hope you had fun!