Welding steel handles onto Sledge Hammer and Splitting Maul heads (TIG steel)

[jakeru]

My friend wanted me to weld some steel tubing as handles onto his forged steel 10 lb Sledge Hammer and Splitting maul heads. The previous fiberglass type handles basically got worn out; one came off and the other was coming loose. He wanted to try steel handles. The steel tubing he brought was hot-dipped galvanized.

I had him pinch the ends of the tubing handles where they would fit to the heads to make it easy to set up and weld. I used a carbide burr the prep the inside chamfer of the forged steel heads, and a flap wheel to prep the surfaces. Also used a flap wheel to remove the galvanize about 1/2" in the area to be welded.



I tack welded to get the handle into good alignment.


Then I did a full fillet weld all the way around.


At first I thought I'd need a lot of power to melt the thick forged steel heads, and dialed in some Helium mix. But then realized I didn't need that much power. maybe because the fillet I was welding was at an edge where there is a hole. I focused the heat on the thick part anyway.

I used 309 filler rod kind of for fun, and I know it usually ends up looking really good too. I got some pics of the maul also:







I decided I better hit it with some cold galvanize anyway to help keep it from rusting.



Recognizing that handles like this are usually wood or fiberglass to absorb vibrations, I am not sure how well this is actually going to work. But it will be interesting to hear.