1920's Craftsman Hewing Hatchet RE-Hafted - New Photos

[sceva]

My Great Grandfather's Craftsman Hewing Hatchet. He built Barns and did other Carpentry work in West Central Ohio. Carried his tools in the side car of his 1919 Indian Twin.
He died in the mid 1930's and the current handle is a cut off axe handle and is deteriorated badly , probably put on by my great uncle as he used this in his garage / work shed for many years.

My question, it seems to be set up for Left Hand use. I am Right Handed and am going to re-handle it with a proper straight handle. Before I do I need to know if these were hand specific, or can the new handle be inserted either way to make it either Right Hand or Left Hand. If it can be either way I will insert the new handle to place the flat on the left and bevel on the right for RH use.

 

[Square_peg]

Those can typically be hung for either hand. Check the eye size top and bottom. Unless it has a dramatic taper to one end you can hang it however you like.

 

[sceva]

I had ordered a 16" ( wanted an 18" but none were listed) Broad hatchet handle with the correct eye size, hand picked, Octagon, No Finish from House Handles. I am glad I described the hatchet head including the length of 3" thru the eye as I got a nice note from Chris that the 1016-AA wouldn't work as it was only 2 1/4" length thru the eye area. Per Chris; he substituted with a old school style 18” broad hatchet that I have a few of around here.

Sounds perfect for what I wanted.
It was delivered today and looks and feels great. Just need to get the rasps out to fit it to the head. Here are photos

 

[sceva]

Here is the finished result. Not perfect but not bad for a first attempt at fitting. It was hard to find a handle with the correct eye size. This House Handle was very close but not perfect. I needed to do a lot of rasping and sanding to get it fit, especially the sides of the eye and working it back to get the head on far enough. A little gap at the smell end of the eye unfortunately that's probably my fault. I fit it so about 1/4" was sticking out at the top then, after driving the wedge. ( very tight and wouldn't bottom out ) I cut it off following the angle and leaving a little above to keep the muffin top. I didn't have any BLO and I'm not a fan of it anyway so I wiped on some Tung oil finish. I left the metal wedges out, I'll add them if I have to.

I also made it Right Handed. It looks much better now and is usable

It was this

Now it looks like this

That is a shadow along the side of the eye, not a gap

 

[Dusty One]

Nice Job.....Nice old Indian ....My Uncle had one in the 50's