- Joined
- Feb 9, 2008
- Messages
- 1,397
run it till it busts, on hickory most of the time the "red wood" is heartwood. My family use to have a big farm with a little saw mill here in the Ozarks and we would cut some hickory blanks for the old handle factories that where around here . I see a lot of the new handles out today and think 35 years ago these things would not even make a #3 quality handle. we would have been docked for blanks like that.
Take it out chopping or splitting and go at it a little. If it feels solid it ought to be O K. If get get a feeling of vibration up or down through the handle, you probably have a crack. it could be from a tree that got "wind shook" twisted around in a storm of bent over with a load of snow or ice. damage like this is one of the hardest thing to pick out by lumber graders. I worked at aBruce hardwood flooring mill for a while and the graders were always getting butt chewings by the lead men for missing things like this.
Take it out chopping or splitting and go at it a little. If it feels solid it ought to be O K. If get get a feeling of vibration up or down through the handle, you probably have a crack. it could be from a tree that got "wind shook" twisted around in a storm of bent over with a load of snow or ice. damage like this is one of the hardest thing to pick out by lumber graders. I worked at aBruce hardwood flooring mill for a while and the graders were always getting butt chewings by the lead men for missing things like this.