Any unusual wedges?

Frank-New Zealand

Frank-New Zealand

Joined
Jan 16, 2012
Messages
333
I would be interested to hear of any unusual wedges you have found in your tools. Recently I bought a nice little axe. The head is very good the haft is excellent....But instead of a wooden wedge it had 5 nails a screw and a beer cap. Of course they have since been replaced.

Regards...Frank. p.s. The cap was from an ugly brand too.
 
I saw one recently that had two transverse bars running across it so it looked like two conjoined addition signs. ++
 
The beer cap is a new one for me. Aren't you going to re-use that, Frank?
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Sadly this wedging system isn't as unusual as it should be. A couple of bent over duplex nails.
I'll more than likely go to a more conventional wedging system when I rehang this axe. :D

Dublex_nail_wedge.jpg
 
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I've never found anything cool, but heres a pic I saved from another forum, if I knew whose photo was I'd give them credit. :/
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And Fortytwo, I've seen those ++ wedges in a few Kellies myself.
 
trailmaker, I've seen you post that one before. I love it.

A couple weeks ago, I pulled a bunch of crap out of one. There was a quarter, some nails, a piece of wire, a screw, and a few other little unidentified objects. I guess whatever was within arms reach just got hammered in.

Those "++" wedges can turn me into a real sailor if you know what I mean.
 
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Ha ha, I still haven't got around to clearing that eye out. Maybe I'll just leave it, the best thing about that axe might be that some nut put 19 nails into the eye. I wonder if the head kept getting wobbly and he just freaked out one day and put all 19 in at once, or if he put them in slowly, over time.
 
trailmaker said:
Ha ha, I still haven't got around to clearing that eye out. Maybe I'll just leave it, the best thing about that axe might be that some nut put 19 nails into the eye. I wonder if the head kept getting wobbly and he just freaked out one day and put all 19 in at once, or if he put them in slowly, over time.
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I think they are supposed to be dragon scales.......
 
nothing really crazy here, just a bunch of damn nails and wedges...
one was kinda funny though; it was an old hatchet. it had regular nails, a couple of wedges and then the kicker... they put in a few of those tiny finish nails... i thought WTF, like thats going to do any good...
 
I've seen and used a few hammers that had a stove-top screw (or two) in the top to take up additional slack.
I thought it was kind of strange, but it worked... at least for the time that I used the tool.

I find a lot of these people didn't realize that a thin coat of boiled linseed oil and a day or two of drying time will really help handle swell back to the time when it had more moisture in it. Then again several of the tools that I have seen looked like someone used 10 year old rotting firewood to make the handle... obviously I need to carry a camera around with me.
 
I've only ever seen wood screws in large quantity. I just re hafted 5 axe heads and made lingum vitae wedges for all of them. They weight twice as much as the pine wedges that came with the handles, 0.4oz (12g) for the pine and 1.0oz (28g) for the lingum. It will make for fun drilling if/when I have to redo any of them. I tried to sink a simple metal wedge into one of them, but it kept spitting out before getting to the first step. I'd love to get my hands on the short 3 prong metal wedges wetterlings/gransfors uses.

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lingum vitae...that's..."hardcore." Nice work. I'd love to try that. You may not need a steel wedge. Why not try them out without a steel wedge?
 
M3mphis said:
lingum vitae...that's..."hardcore." Nice work. I'd love to try that. You may not need a steel wedge. Why not try them out without a steel wedge?
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since I can't get one in that's the plan :p :D I'm hoping they do well without it. I've had lingum vitae shift and shrink on me before, but in a confined space thats under a lot of pressure I can only assume that they'll act like they do when used as ball bearings and exude oil into the surrounding wood, while only shrinking a minimal amount since their so dense to begin with.
 
Can someone specify the best wood (or properties) to use for wedges. I was going to use a very dense hardwood called jarrah here in australia but then I read that Oak was recommended.

George
 
GK1: I forgot to quote you on preferred wedge material-

I've heard that it doesn't matter what you use, and I've heard you should use the hardest wood available. I find hardwood probably pounds deeper without splitting and mashing. Maybe the oak is recommended for the grippy texture of its rough open grain?
 
Last Visible Canary said:
since I can't get one in that's the plan :p :D I'm hoping they do well without it. I've had lingum vitae shift and shrink on me before, but in a confined space thats under a lot of pressure I can only assume that they'll act like they do when used as ball bearings and exude oil into the surrounding wood, while only shrinking a minimal amount since their so dense to begin with.
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Keeping it sealed up with an oil like BLO should help. The nice thing about BLO (and others) is that it hardens and seals as it dries. Probably nothing new to you. Thanks for showing us.

GK1 said:
Can someone specify the best wood (or properties) to use for wedges. I was going to use a very dense hardwood called jarrah here in australia but then I read that Oak was recommended.

George
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I've read to use hardwoods from some sources, and softwoods from other sources. I've tried a variety of woods just to see, from as soft as white pine to a local shrub/tree that is very similar to ironwood (we've always called it bitter brush, but I don't know if that's its real name). So far, all of it works. However, my strong preference is for a reasonably hard wood that is very resistance to cracking as it is being driven. The "bitterbrush" cracks just a little too easily. The Oak is great. I recently used a scrap of what I believe to be alder, and it was fantastic. I think more important than wood type is shaping your wedge and kerf appropriately so you get a tight fit without bottoming out your wedge.
 
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