Hardox axe head

[Danny B]

I'm looking into making an axe weapon for my next FW. I've been reliably informed that Hardox is good for making the head, but what grade is best? From what I've seen, 500 is easiest to come by in small amounts.

[Flag Captured]

'Best' is kinda subjective, hardox 500 will be good enough though. Fairly sure hatchet's is hardox 450 and that's fine still after 3 years of hitting things

Kcut do hardox 500, and there's loads of bits of hardox 450 floating about (not literally lol) so as long as you go for something with a decent enough tooth profile and thickness (would say no less than 4mm) you'll be alright

[Eventorizon]

Any grade of Hardox will out perform pretty much anything else. (The number refers to its Brinell hardness value in HBW, using carbide ball indenter.)

It will depend on what thickness you want as harder grades don't come in sheets as thin as lower values; eg Hardox 500's minimum stock thickness is 4mm, where as Hardox 400 goes down to 2mm.

Hardox 400 will do you just fine. If you can get 500, 600 or Extreme then you are on a roll.

[Danny B]

It will depend on what thickness you want as harder grades don't come in sheets as thin as lower values; eg Hardox 500's minimum stock thickness is 4mm, where as Hardox 400 goes down to 2mm.

Hardox 400 will do you just fine. If you can get 500, 600 or Extreme then you are on a roll.

Excellent. I've tracked down a tasty-looking 12mm thick offcut of 500, that should be ample thickness and virtually unbreakable. Shapewise, it's probably going to resemble an old-fashioned tomahawk.

[typhoon_driver]

For an axe a piece of mild or stainless steel would do the business. The energy involved is far far lower than a disc or drum so you don't need to worry about material selection in the same way.

[Danny B]

Ok. One other question, will putting a counterweight at the other end stop the front jumping? And if so, is it worth it on a FW?

[typhoon_driver]

It would but it wouldn't be worth it in a featherweight.

A counterweight wouldn't be able to be positioned far enough away for it to be of use.

Lets say you have a 1kg head on the axe. If that's at 50cm distance then you would need a 2kg mass 25cm on the other side, or a 5kg counter balance at 10cm distance. Much better to look at the placement of components in the robot itself or use magnets if fighting in the robochallenge featherweight arena.