First Jersey Hang

J

John Frankl

Joined
Oct 16, 2001
Messages
1,917
So with Hurricane Sandy keeping me indoors all day I thought I would try hanging one of my Jersey patterns. It's also the first straight handle I've done (36").

This is the largest, it is unmarked, but in all respects nearly identical to the other two Kelly Perfects I have.

Here it is after a couple preliminary fits.

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The head is pretty big. The handle was just a bit small.

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Rigged up a little scrap of an old wedge to fill the gap.

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Very far from perfect, but all in all it came out okay.

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A couple photos of the cheeks seated up pretty nicely, as well as he nice grain of the handle.

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Does getting really excited about nice straight grain in a handle make me weird?:)
 
yep. weird.

thanks for the images.
picked up a Collins Jersey this weekend so the photos are interesting for sure.

where'd you get your Octagonal handle?

buzz
 
House Handle. Great wood and grain orientation. They charge a dollar to strip all the varnish and make it "octagonal" (actually it would take a bit of hand work to true everything up to true octagonal)
 
You are about as weird as a bunch of us!

Great job! Jerseys can be challenging to hang, looks like you wipped it pretty good.
 
awesome, I can't wait to see that one in action.
 
Yeah, the head is a good 4 lbs. Should take a decent bite.

After Sandy blows through I may just have a bunch of dead wood on the ground :)
 
So here is a tip -

If your handle is too small but you still want to use it, then it is what it is. This is what I do -

Never trim your original wedge down to fit the handle - fit the wedge to fit the eye.

Then cut your wedge so it is big and fat where you need it. So in your case you don't want to have a perfect wedge front to back, your one end will be fatter - and thats ok.

So, get that wedge bigger than needed as stated. Get a good coating of linseed oil on it and then also down in the slit(kerf), and then proceed to drive her home. The wedge, even though larger than perhaps needed, wild mold itself into what is available, almost like clay.

So why do this over what you did? What is the difference?

Good question. All told? Perhaps nothing.

This is what I do know though - is that if I have a haft that isn't big enough to do the job, they I want something in that eye that is - all I have left is the wedge. That being said, I dont want it in 2 pieces, I want one piece to ensure the eye is solid and tight. Normally this one piece operation wont work, but I have found(as others have) if you apply linseed to the wedge, let it sit maybe a minute or two, then drive, the wedge will take on the shape of the kerf and other areas, thus allowing more wedge into spaces it would not normally go, and thus giving a better fit overall. This is especially effective if you make the haft stick out of the eye for overlap - the axe head will have a real hard time coming off, which is the point.

I like what you did there - you did what you had to. This is just one guy throwing some hard learned knowledge to someone else.

Bottom line - keep on hafting and learning - hell I know I am not perfect at it.......yet.

Keep on choppin

Mike
 
Mike,

Thank you so much. That makes perfect sense.

Usually I just let impatience get the better of me, but I will definitely try this next time. I know some people get bent out of shape when they post their work and anyone says anything other than "Wow, I love it!", but not me. I post precisely so that people like yourself will bring new knowledge to the discussion.
 
That's basically what I do to Operator.
If my handle isn't quite large enough to fill the axe eye, I try and make sure the wedge fills the eye from front to back. I will pound it in and let the sides of the eye 'shave' off the extra wood on the wedge.

It still worked out fine though. I've done the same thing before.
The Ace Hardware store that I go to carries large wooden wedges that will fill most any axe eye, so I just buy a few extra's now, just in case I run into such a situation.
 
Another tip for the jerseys ( I learned this from Memphis I think) is I bring the whole shoulder area down and don't specifically trim just to fit the lugs. I've found that that mushrooming at the bottom creates a stopper for the axe and it can more easily loosen that way. I think you can see it in this picture. I use a scraper and rasp to bring that whole shoulder down (front and back).

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