Repairing battle axe with duct tape

[_k1]

I notice that some weapons are repaired with duct tape: fire axe, battle axe, hatchet, spear, etc. The weapons that “does not conduct electricity”.

The rationale, as I understand, is that they have wooden shaft, and are repaired with duct tape. But they also have metal blade, which should be repaired with welder.

Maybe they could be repaired with either duct tape or welder?

[druidniam]

The rational is that if you’re hacking apart zombies, you’re more likely to break the shaft/haft/handle than the head or point. Speaking as a blacksmith, a good tool steel axe will take a massive amount of punishment from organic tissue before it even remotely starts to chip or crack.

If you’re swinging it at concrete, steel, rock, or anything with a rockwell hardness that meets or exceeds the steel in question however, then i could see the need for replacing the axe head. You wouldn’t want to repair it with a welder however. You’d want to replace the head, or the item should be converted into a makeshift version of itself since you’re essentially destroying all the things that make the item have it’s qualities in the first place.

[_k1]

That sounds quite reasonable. Repairing sword with welder is not realistic in the first place.

[druidniam]

Repairing a sword with a crucible on the other hand would, if you also included clay as part of the construction material. You’d essentially be reforging the sword from scratch using the clay casting method which was how most mass produced swords have been made since the bronze age.

[DeWolf]

Isn’t that sort of process a bit more complicated with steel? But then again not everything in cataclysm makes sense.

[druidniam]

Cast forging? Not in the strictest sense. You still melt the steel to a pouring temperature and then pour it into the mold. There are oodles of finishing steps regardless of the actual metal you use to turn it into a functional blade, but for a general sword shaped object, melt and pour gets you there.

From there you’d spend a lot of tlc with grinding stones, sand, polishing compound or polishing cloth, honing stones, more polishing and finally tempering, and final edge preparation.

[tarburst98]

well, for metal weapon repair you can think of it less as “welding bits to it” as “straightening and sharpening” unless it’s a blunt weapon. a sledge hammer kinda can just get more metal welded on to it.

[druidniam]

You still wouldn’t use a welder, you’d use a furnace and an anvil and a hammer. Except for things like hammers or sledges, then yes. Weld on the chunks of steel all day long.