Bummed about my new Council boys FSS axe

M3mphis said:
That's a great example of some of the crappiest hickory you could possibly come up with. It has mostly the porous, fast spring growth. The bands of summer growth are tiny, almost nonexistent. That handle may have been doomed regardless of the grain orientation.
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Can you explain this more? Where you see this (difference between spring and summer growth).
 
You'll get no argument from me that it was a crappy handle. I seriously think that the primary reason companies shellac the living hell out of their handles is so it's impossible to see the end grain when you buy them.
 
cooperhill said:
Can you explain this more? Where you see this (difference between spring and summer growth).
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The spring growth is the porous looking grain. The summer growth is smooth and buttery. The more porous the piece is overall the weaker and more brittle the handle is. In my experience, this is a huge factor.

sutured said:
You'll get no argument from me that it was a crappy handle. I seriously think that the primary reason companies shellac the living hell out of their handles is so it's impossible to see the end grain when you buy them.
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You may be right. I think that the average customer picking up a handle at the hardware store probably doesn't even look at the grain anyway. Let's face it, it's a very small percentage of axes out there that even get used.
 
cooperhill said:
Can you explain this more? Where you see this (difference between spring and summer growth).
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It's also called 'early and late growth' Coop.
Think of growth rings. The darker and lighter colors in those.
Never mind, this will explain it much better than I can. I spent years and thousands of $'s learning this stuff, but I never claimed to be a prof... :p

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology
 
Cooper, this is the ash 24" handle that you sent to me. The grain orientation is "off" but the grain density and the amount of summer growth vs spring growth is absolutely top shelf IMO. Here's some pics:

IMG_7489.JPG


IMG_7487.jpg
 
M3mphis said:
Cooper, this is the ash 24" handle that you sent to me. The grain orientation is "off" but the grain density and the amount of summer growth vs spring growth is absolutely top shelf IMO. Here's some pics:

IMG_7489.JPG


IMG_7487.jpg
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Ooh--that IS lovely!
 
M3mphis said:
That's a great example of some of the crappiest hickory you could possibly come up with. It has mostly the porous, fast spring growth. The bands of summer growth are tiny, almost nonexistent. That handle may have been doomed regardless of the grain orientation.
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Yep, that is just bad.
If you notice some of the old adds they brag up their hickory handles as being made from second growth Hickory. That is because all things being equal the second growth trees will have less early wood and more late wood, by default, because they have less growth rings, and wider growth rings.
 
M3mphis said:
That handle may have been doomed regardless of the grain orientation.
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Never the less when it did finally fail it failed along the horizontal grain. I don't believe this particular failure would have occurred on a vertical grained handle.
 
G-pig said:
Check out the second photo here

http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/coloradoaxetests.html
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Another thing to note is this axe and the axe that Sutured showed have what I call grain runout. Follow the split line up the handle as it follows a single porous growth ring and the crack almost leaves the side of the handle. A good handle will have more continuous growth ring layers going the complete length of the handle from the bottom right up through the eye. This will show up as less V's in the grain on any side of the handle.
 
M3mphis said:
That's freakin awesome... In kind of a twisted way.
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We are twisted folk eh? If you look at the two pieces, it looks like it basically delaminated along the grain. crappy wood artificially processed without attention will make a crappy handle.
 
garry3 said:
Whats going on here G-pig? I don't think that worm in the bottle has got the best of me quit yet. Them pictures don't match up. Looks like two different handles and breaks. The second being hung according to the book of hoyle.
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without more pictures we will just have to trust Jimbo I suppose. The halves seem to match as good as the eye can tell with that picture alone.
 
G-pig said:
without more pictures we will just have to trust Jimbo I suppose. The halves seem to match as good as the eye can tell with that picture alone.
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Yep my bad. I thought the photo you showed represented the axe handle that was broken in Sutured's post. As in second photo of his break. I must be tiried signing off for the night:cool:.
 
Jagtech, how did you come out?
I have been trying to find a real study of the heartwood vs sapwood strength, nothing. Just someone stating that the heartwood pound for pound is as strong as the sapwood. With that kind of thinking we should be making our handles out of spruce. Anyone know where to find real numbers? How about specific gravity of the heartwood vs sapwood?
 
garry3 said:
Jagtech, how did you come out?
I have been trying to find a real study of the heartwood vs sapwood strength, nothing. Just someone stating that the heartwood pound for pound is as strong as the sapwood. With that kind of thinking we should be making our handles out of spruce. Anyone know where to find real numbers? How about specific gravity of the heartwood vs sapwood?
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Here's a little info on a test done for a drumstick company. Interestingly enough, The Wood Science and Technology Centre (WSTC) of the University of New Brunswick, which did the testing, found the Modulus of Elasticity and the Modulus of Rupture to be higher in the heartwood than in the sapwood. For a full copy of the test I imagine you could write the company or the WSTC.
 
garry3 said:
... I have been trying to find a real study of the heartwood vs sapwood strength, nothing. Just someone stating that the heartwood pound for pound is as strong as the sapwood. With that kind of thinking we should be making our handles out of spruce. Anyone know where to find real numbers? How about specific gravity of the heartwood vs sapwood?
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Here you go:

books


from The Commercial Hickories by Anton T. Boisen and J.A. Newlin
USDA Forest Service Bulletin 80, Issued October 27, 1910
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZYUcCJa72gMC&ots=QiomFK2z-0&dq=heartwood%20sapwood%20hickory%20strength&lr&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q=heartwood%20sapwood%20hickory%20strength&f=false
 
garry3 said:
Jagtech, how did you come out?
I have been trying to find a real study of the heartwood vs sapwood strength, nothing. Just someone stating that the heartwood pound for pound is as strong as the sapwood. With that kind of thinking we should be making our handles out of spruce. Anyone know where to find real numbers? How about specific gravity of the heartwood vs sapwood?
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Garry3, So far I haven't made a decision on asking asking Omaha knife for a for a return/exchange. I'm leaning toward just keeping it reworking the head and fitting a proper handle I have more faith in. I am disappointed in the handle that Council fitted to this axe. I looked back at their web site and it lists the FSS boys axe as getting a grade A hickory handle where as the standard boys axe just states hickory handle. I take a a statement like that to mean a better quality handle than the standard version. When I enquired at Council about buying a replacement handle the part number given was the same number as the standard boys axe. You can see the pictures I posted that with horizontal grain and the heart/sapwood this is not a handle that most people on this forum would pick for an axe handle. Maybe I'll see how much abuse this handle can take as an experiment.
 
jagtech said:
Maybe I'll see how much abuse this handle can take as an experiment.
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Sounds like a good plan to me! Providing you don't have significant runout on the handle I think you'll be surprised at how well it holds up.
 
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