Bummed about my new Council boys FSS axe

jagtech said:
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.
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Sounds like a good plan. You know if it is made to FSS spec it can't be bad.
 
Steve and Fortytwoblades, Thank you kindly. It's very nice to know. I think a all heartwood handle looks nice myself.
 
garry3 said:
Sounds like a good plan. You know if it is made to FSS spec it can't be bad.
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Just a fyi. I just looked at over a dozen axes and pulaskis in the storage room, all should be fss spec., at not one had grain aligned straight with the handle. And as far as fss specs. go, often the specs are just fine (sometimes they aren't--plastic wedges are in spec) but often enforcement of the specs is poor. Somebody has to be holding tthe contractors to spec, and often that doesn't happen.
 
Let me add a bit on this subject..

I was taught many years ago the art of making a haft, and hanging an axe. I was taught by men who depended on their axe for everything on a daily basis here in the hills of Appalachia.

Back in the day, a new haft was more commonly made in the winter after the sap was down, from green hickory, and ONLY the sapwood was used. The wood was worked green because it was easier to work, seasoned hickory is HARD to work with any hand tool. While working the green hickory had its benefits, it also had its pitfalls..

Green wood naturally shrinks as it dries, so hanging an axe on a green haft will result in a loose head sooner than later. The way around that problem was to roughly shape the shoulder, then use the hot coals in the fireplace to season, and temper that end. This was done by placing the head end of the haft over hot coals, and turning it to keep it from burning. Steam and water would boil out of that end of the haft, creating a surprisingly seasoned shoulder that could be fitted right away. When the haft was close to the preferred profile, it was scraped to perfection with a burnished metal scraper, or, more commonly a piece of glass. The rest of the haft was flame tempered over the fire as it neared completion. Although usable, the swell was generally left rough and oversized for a few months so the checks that would appear in the end grain could be removed with the final finishing.

The next problem was, as green wood dries, it tends to warp. Can't have that in a axe haft. To help eliminate warping a good straight grained tree was selected to split the haft staves from. If the grain is perfectly straight, it is less likely warp because of short grain run out. The other thing I was taught...wait for it...shape the haft with the grain running horizontal to the pole, instead of what is these days considered to be the correct way..vertical. The reason for this.. . the haft won't warp against the grain, only along the grain. Its like quarter sawn lumber, it expands and contracts more in thickness than width.

With that being said.. I have an old Kelly perfect that was given to me a quarter of a century ago by a friend that it was issued to in 1939 when he went into the 3 C's. I hung it as I was taught, with green hickory, grain horizontal to the pole. I use it regularly, nary a haft issue after 25 years!
 
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Many of us seniors played baseball and softball with hickory bats 40-50 years ago. And coaches always told us never to have the maker's stamp facing or opposite the ball. I suspect that if you look at an old Louisville Slugger you'll find that the stamp is parallel with the woodgrain. Much easier to break a bat with grain orientation 90 degrees to the strike than it is in line with the ball.
Anyone out there got an old bat they can photograph with regard to grain and the stamp to prove or disprove this?
 
Those old timers I watched and listened to as I grew up knew what they were doing and talking about. The axe was a part of their everyday life. The only thing they stressed in a new haft was it be straight grained, and white sap wood. Grain was oriented horizontal to the pole when hanging with green wood. This was done to keep the haft from warping. When making a haft from seasoned wood, the axe would be hung with the grain vertical.

In my experience, only split wood is suitable for a haft, a sawn billet will more than likely have grain run out, where a split stave never will.

Here are 2 quotes I found that support what I have been taught, and experienced throughout life.

http://www.woodbat.org/

Past research data on the impact bending strength of wood were studied, and it was found that wood has the highest impact bending strength (i.e. toughness) when it is stressed on the face grain. Results indicate that toughness is up to 30% higher when contact is made on the flat-grain face vs. contact made on the edge-grain face.

This research showed that flat-grain contact has higher impact bending strength for both ring-porous species and diffuse-porous species. That means that ash would be stronger for flat-grain contact as well, but to prevent annual ring separation, edge-grain contact is longer lasting.

Thus, the best orientation for hitting a baseball with a diffuse-porous species like hard maple is to hit on the flat-grain face
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Furthermore, the likely reason why wood bats break more often today, compared to years past is... the method in which wood is processed from the log. Years ago, labor intensive methods were used to split logs, and then turn those triangular staves into round billets. This resulted in wood baseball bats that had straight-grained wood. Nowadays, with higher-production sawing equipment, and increased demands for yields and efficiency... a large percentage of wood billets are SAWN from logs. If wood is not SPLIT, then it is most likely being sawn across the radial and/or tangential slope of grain... resulting in round billets like the one shown above (with tangential slope of grain).
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quinton said:
In my experience, only split wood is suitable for a haft, a sawn billet will more than likely have grain run out, where a split stave never will.
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Absolutely true, but how many commercial haft makers would buy into that? None.
 
300Six said:
Absolutely true, but how many commercial haft makers would buy into that? None.
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You would be right, my friend.. Money speaks volumes.

I just don't see volumes of people seeking perfect axe hafts these days.:D
 
Square_peg said:
Good stuff, Quinton. Thanks for the link.
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Fully agree! I was unaware that white ash is/was used for bats. Of all the hardwoods ash has the weakest adhesion between annual growth rings and that's why it splits like a dream for firewood and why Natives use black ash to make woven baskets via easy separation of annual growth layers. A enterprising character in Ottawa was the first to start marketing sugar maple-made bats in around 20 years ago and I guess it's gone up from there. Interesting that maple bat stamps are located on the edge grain and ash stamps are on the flat grain. Suggests to me that 'hard' maple ought to be pretty darn good for axe handles providing you can get hold of straight grain blanks. If anyone wants to try maple my local lumber mill sells culled bat blanks that are 2 3/4" square. Most are obvious as to what's wrong with them (checking, slight knots, grain runout etc but there are quite a few that merely have colour blemishes and are otherwise beautiful looking. At any given time they have a couple of hundred in stock so it's just a question of laboriously poking around.
 
300Six said:
Likely owned by a doctor/lawyer/accountant or someone that didn't over-use it and has probably also been hidden away for decades. But yeah, someone long-gone selected and made this haft, someone marketed it and someone bought it and did not manage to break it over the span of a century or more!
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It sure wasn't abused, that's for sure. That being said, my 85 year old uncle has had the same haft in his Kelly for the last 27 years. My uncle is still very active and still uses his axe on at least a weekly basis. I was admiring the smooth aged haft on this axe just a few weeks ago.
 
One more reason to prefer a straight handle!

I wonder if one is going to roll his own (thus no harsh economic realities), if he wouldn't be better off either riving a straight handle or cutting a suitably curved branch or sapling.

With a store bought handle, I don't care about grain orientation, only whether the grain runs from top to bottom, I.e., no runout. I think this is the reason for the "grain orientation" uproar, as it can indicate a better chance for not running out completely, but as we have seen many times, a handle can have perfect grain orientation and still have runout!
 
BG_Farmer said:
One more reason to prefer a straight handle!

I wonder if one is going to roll his own (thus no harsh economic realities), if he wouldn't be better off either riving a straight handle or cutting a suitably curved branch or sapling.

With a store bought handle, I don't care about grain orientation, only whether the grain runs from top to bottom, I.e., no runout. I think this is the reason for the "grain orientation" uproar, as it can indicate a better chance for not running out completely, but as we have seen many times, a handle can have perfect grain orientation and still have runout!
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Exactly! A sawn handle can have perfect grain orientation and still have run out!
But, a haft made from a riven stave will never have run out. The only way a riven haft will have run out, is if the haft maker is drunk..:D
 
Rules are meant to be broken. Here are two handles I selected myself. I didn't go with the grain orientation that I normaly do. These where the best handles of the bunch though. I don't see a problem with them at all because the run out is not there.
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Short handles, such as on hammers and hatchets, are not subject to the stress forces of longer-handled ones. And as stated earlier by others, myself am no where near as fussy about grain orientation on a straight-hafted implement. Curved hafts, but with horizontal grain (perpendicular to the head), are fully run-out twice no matter how perfect the original blank.
 
300Six said:
Short handles, such as on hammers and hatchets, are not subject to the stress forces of longer-handled ones. And as stated earlier by others, myself am no where near as fussy about grain orientation on a straight-hafted implement. Curved hafts, but with horizontal grain (perpendicular to the head), are fully run-out twice no matter how perfect the original blank.
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We can get away with more in a short haft. But I would have no problems with this in a longer haft either. I would say that most hickory would be stronger than ash plain or edge grain.
As quinton has stated the best handles are split not sawn. It is really the best way by far. Can we really read the grain in a handle? We can change how the growth rings lay much in the same way as a board, but to really say following the grain?
Here is an osage bow limb to illustrate my point. If this was sawn into a board would we know how crooked the grain really is?
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The grain flows like a river, up and down and side to side. In a axe handle we are more concerned about growth ring run out than grain. We have no real controll in store bought handles.
 
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