While cleaning out my grandpa's garage, I found an old hatchet behind some 30 year old lawnmower oil. I don't have a hatchet so I grabbed it. Planning to clean it up a bit and re-handle it.
here's how it started:
kinda gross. The handle was almost loose enough to pull it out by hand, so I knocked it loose and started cleaning up the head. I wanted to leave some of the patina so I hit with a wire wheel on the angle grinder and got it how I wanted it and noticed a crack in the back of the head on the flat spot. So I ground it a bit with the dremel:
I welded it up and ground it back to shape but didn't get a picture.
I had a cheap "hickory" handle delivered from Amazon, so the next step is to shave that down to fit.
preach
UberDork
1/9/25 6:56 a.m.
Not quite as cool as yours but I have a tomahawk made by the same company and same style as the ones used by the US in Vietnam. Made in Chattanooga, TN.
Nice! I suppose that's too rusty for any identifying marks to remain? I know a lot of axe heads will have a manufacturer's name stamped on one of the faces.
Nice! I love seeing old tools brought back into operational spec.
Is there any way to save the handle?
Remember, they don't make wood the way they used to...or it seems like they don't.
My wife recently had her father's old hatchet sharpened and we've got it in our camping gear. I need to dig it out to participate with photos.
I wonder if a new wedge would have tightened up the original handle?
I'm stoked to see the interest!
I wasn't able to find any marks either on the handle or the head. I'm sure it's not anything fancy, knowing my grandfather lol.
I'm certainly not an expert, but i don't think the old handle was salvageable, even with a new wedge. The top of the handle where it goes in the eye was pretty shriveled up and bad looking.
Better make a wood target and practice your hatchet throwing. 
My older brother when we where young got a hatchet for Christmas for some reason. That summer he was chopping on a small tree, missed a little and the hatchet glanced off and got him in his calf. He still has the scar. I almost puked and passed out. Be careful.
I worked on fitting the new handle yesterday for a bit. My method is sticking the head on the handle, and smacking the handle with a mallet while holding it upside down. This uses inertia to work the head on.
Then, when you pull the handle back off, it leaves you with a mark of where the head is interfering. You then remove material under that contact line.
This handle is a bit too big for this head, so it's taking a fair bit of material removal to get it to fit, I need to spend probably another hour on it
Back 40 years ago when I was a framing carpenter I used a 28 OZ Vaughn waffle head, straight claw wood handled framing hammer. It was perfectly balanced and I never broke a handle but the laborers I lent it to for pulling nails would just pull back and crank on the hammer until the handles would snap instead of pulling it left or right and twisting the nail out using the head as a fulcrum.
I started gluing the head onto the handle with PL 400 construction adhesive to add a little strength to the replacement process. A plain old sheet rock knife was the best whittling tool for the job and you just tap the end of the handle on concrete to drive the head on and find your interference marks. To remove a broken off glued handle just drill out the corners of the head with a 3/8" drill bit and clean up with a chisel.
