Adding material to haft for a better fit?

[DanDanthedirtyoldman]

I've recently got a nice 5 lb Kelly flint edge and that came with a nice thin old handle but after a little testing it came loose. I decided to see if I could rehang it on the same handle. After pulling the wedge, turns out it is missing a fair amount of material in the front top where it fits the eye.

I got it in my head to slowly add layers of titebond no 3 until it's thick enough to fit the eye. I started today but it's kind of a mess.

I'll post some pics tomorrow.

Anybody have any experience adding material to a handle they didn't want to give up on but was too small/loose fit?

 

[Hickory n steel]

You can glue on wood for sure, but so far I've only done this with a few hatchets and hammers.
It definitely depends how much wood you have to glue in and how well you fit the head whether it's going to hold up very well.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I've saved handles with overstrike damage before by pulling the head off and prepping the damaged zone to a nice flat surface and laminating on a monolithic block of extra material, and it's held up fine, but I would advise using as much solid wood as possible and also leaving as much of the original behind as possible. Glue is stronger than the wood IN THEORY but in practice glue-ups are almost always imperfect to some degree and end up falling short of the maximum attainable bond strength.

 

[flexo]

the easiest way is to play with the wedge. make it bigger towards the place in question, or add a piece of wood to the wedge, in the slot. all using wood glue. all this does not give more material to the handle but ensures a more effective hold. the piece of wood can be pyramidal and forced into a round hole.