Balisong Future Axe Handles and How They Get There

E

Ernest DuBois

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Mar 2, 2013
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In light of the times I'm calling it, out of the grid axe handles. It is another stage in the preparation process, from this one, which is to say stacked in the rafters of the woodshed,

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to this, just prior to when I'm grabbing one to make the handle; stacked in the hayloft.Twixt the two I've dusted them off cleaning sludge from the watering and sand and grit from exposures to bring as little of that inside and give an inspection which they have all passed to this point while noting the possibility of degradation by a vine that has attached itself.

(Having a difficulty ordering the images so I switch posting tactics)​

Twixt the two I've dusted them off cleaning sludge from the watering and sand and grit from exposures.
 
Say man, I’m envious of your stave-ings account. I have a few, but have to use them sparingly.

However, a friend in CA sent me some mesquite wood recently, which I’ll lathe turn some chisel handles from.

Who needs money when you’ve got wood?

Parker
 
After a year spent in the USA's region of predominantly softwoods, mostly non-deciduous: your Pines and Firs, your Junipers, your Spruces and so on and so on, really, all non-suitables in terms of axe handles, I have an increased empathy. At the same time a stimulation to know the alternative solutions in those places that will keep me out of the shops.
For now, yes you could say I'm banking my reserves for those leaner times but it's no shift from earlier strategies that have generally kept me well stocked thanks to a continuous rotation: handle - replenish readied seasoned well prepared stocks: fresh cleaved, watered, dried initial out-door stage, dried subsequent indoors stage - handle - repeat... Quantities may at first look, (I have much more Than shown here it's true ), be deceptive without accounting for the rejects.
 
I carved a small tomahawk handle out of poplar the week after Christmas, a kinda prototype for a maple one later. It’s holding up so far, I haven’t really used it hard though.

Guy in Michigan says he’ll send me some hickory staves the next time he cuts one down, looking forward to that.

Parker
 
catspa said:
I carved a small tomahawk handle out of poplar the week after Christmas, a kinda prototype for a maple one later. It’s holding up so far, I haven’t really used it hard though.

Guy in Michigan says he’ll send me some hickory staves the next time he cuts one down, looking forward to that.

Parker
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I know poplar well enough. It has some good resilience but no strength, any sudden forceful impact will snap it like a cheap toothpick. Try swinging it at something with an unequivocal follow-through and sufficient momentum and see it for yourself.
There in those regions, let's call it Rocky Mountains, or central Colorado, I experimented with one unidentified local hard wood hauled from the wood pile. Nearest I could figure out, it may have been elder wood, hard, brittle, definite yellow tint with an unusual knobby bark. It was adaquite but in the end its lack of strength caused its untimely failure. Since Ash is ubiquitous I'm surprised you don't go for more of it as alternative to shipping Hickory.
 
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Ash doesn’t grow here, but I do have some old shovel handles. I also have an ash handle on another tomahawk, now that you mention it.

Crabapple and vine maple are a couple local choices for tough handles, if you find the right ones and take the butt cut. They usually don’t grow very big, maybe 4-6” so the grain orientation ends up less than ideal.

Parker
 
Not locally. I’ve heard there’s some in Oregon, but I don’t get down there too often.

Parker
 
Ok, I'm starting to get the picture. But it reminds me of the old stories they used to tell about settlement out West, the one that went on and on about these settlers who'd bring the necessities that were known to not exist so much in those places one of which was wood for implements and re-handling, so they'd include appropriate saplings in their things. It's the reason for bringing up Ash since it grows most places as long as it gets watered. Well you mention Malus, apple, also one I've experimented with on one axe with the feeling that there must be better alternatives. All I know is that in places like Idaho where you'd also get little hardwood growing in the mountains, trees useful in these ways are found in the towns along the streets and in parks. At a certain point, I'm sure trade picked up and there was a shift away from self-sufficiency but still some of these remnants remain for industrious exploitation.
 
Seems to me like the Idahonians would frown on my cutting the trees along their streets and in their parks. Probably safer than cutting trees on their private property, however. That sounds like a quick way to bring my industrious exploitation to a sudden halt.

A friend is traveling to Oregon soon, perhaps he can locate some ash for me, maybe even a sapling. Might be too wet here though.

Parker
 
Thank-you for the cutting-edge information on seasoning wood for axe-handles etc.. Usually I would have to pick up any book ever published on woodcraft to find this sort of information.
 
There is "Oregon Ash" in the Willamette Valley. I even have a couple in my small pasture here in SW Washington. I think that they grow too fast to be of very good handle quality?
 
TS, interesting. I had always thought it was too wet here to grow them, but turns out they like moist bottomland. Maybe I confused them with hickory, probably researching them at the same time. This time of year, my clay-ey soil is fully saturated, in fact every rainstorm leaves me with standing water in the low spots.

So how big are your trees? Are they in a mixed stand of other species, or off by themselves? Supposedly older specimens can be subject to heart rot, I find that true with bigleaf maple as well. But “stovepipe trees” are what I look for, because 1) the owners are more likely to take them down as danger trees, and 2) the outer ring of sapwood and recent heartwood is likely to contain the staves I want.

Parker
 
BH, tell me exactly what it is you don't know but want to concerning handle getting and preparation and I'll try helping you out.

In Idaho, as I understand it, they're all about liberties and freedom loving so probably they could say nothing about you exercising yours. But seriously, you know, I'd have problems going around cutting trees on public ground too. Still I manage it in other, not especially clever ways. Even though I have a hard time imagining a wetter and sloppier climate than here near Holland's coast I can accept you have no Ash where you are Parker. What about Dogwood (Cornus)? Some shrubs can get big enough for handling and might have interesting characteristics. What's this Maple like you mention? I understand a Maple producing very high quality lumber grows there. Did you try tapping into the local knowledge of these things?
Fast growing Ash is not necessarily poor wood and there will always be variation tree to tree. More important to get your handle wood from mature Ash. What is mature? Could be ±40 years old, could be 80.
 
I only have 3 "mature" Ash trees, maybe 20 to 24" diameter at the base. They were good sized trees when I bought the property 35 years ago. These trees quickly branch into 3 or 4 main "stems" just a few feet off the ground. There is potential for a lot of handle material if I every decide to take them down! A couple more trees that I have nurtured have 8 to 10" diameter single trunks that I've kept limbed up maybe 15 feet, so they have future potential! The ground here is very wet - standing water in the low spots this time of the year. Average rainfall is 65"!
 
Dogwood is common here, but doesn’t get very big and the limbs are brittle. Vine maple is a small understory tree that doesn’t get above 20-25 ft, mostly grows crooked in swampy shallow creek valleys along with devils club and salmonberry. Bigleaf maple is a real tree of up to 100 ft when mature. Softer than eastern maple, everyone is ga-ga about the figured wood it contains (especially fiddleback or quilted). That’s kinda ho-hum to me, having grown up around it, I look for the stronger straight grain pieces.

The natural range of Oregon ash stops about 200 miles south. I would guess that trees in a stand or in poor soils would grow slowly and produce tighter grain wood, and that specimens out in the open would grow faster and have big fat rings.

Parker
 
There are different Dogwoods it's true. Cornus mas is the one for your handling.
Still, that you are in the middle of such handle wood desolation to this extent is not something I'da thunk.
Even in the desert's edge south of your peninsula I have at least some promising prospects to pursue.
Here in Holland I've cut an ash similar to what TS describes which did give good wood but I'd not be driving 200 miles to get it. Mine was three steps out the back door.
But if the Ash is standing in ground that is very wet all the time the heart wood can turn dark and's probably not ideal for an axe's handle.
 
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