Boiled Linseed Oil - messing with a frontier hawk

B

Brody R.

Joined
Jan 27, 2005
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So I'm working on a CS frontier hawk. I've been working on the fit by continually sanding down the marks after pounding it on, getting a lot tighter but taking some time. Anyway when I get the fight right I was gonna rub down the handle with linseed oil, I heard that soaking the head & top of the handle in a bucket of it for a day or 2 will swell the wood and make the fit much tighter. Anyone have experience with this? If it works about how long does the effect last?
 
Shouldn't be necessary unless the wood has shrunk, in which case you need to fit a new handle anyway. Pin the head (drill a hole through side by side and pound in a tight-fitting nail -- 3/16" is about right-- then file it flush). Tung oil lasts longer than linseed oil.
 
I have no on purpose personal experience but I have heard soaking the handle in water to swell will tighten the head for the short term but that once it dries out again its worse off as the wood fibers have been crushed as they swelled. This advice fit my limited experience as a kid leaving my dad's hatched out to get rained on for a couple of days and I have never tried to reproduce it.
Let me know.
josh
 
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