Handle Grain Orientation

if i could get my daughter to show me how to load pictures again on Bucket, i'd post some images of the hickory we cut and dried.
might have been a little better if we had the perfectly grown trees of mostly sap wood to cut but what we had were older trees, lots of heart wood and very many growth rings on 10-12 inch dia. trees.
nevertheless we sawed them with straight grain in mind and did O.K. with what we had to work with.
i'm trying to talk the sawyer into cutting a few more before the bugs get'em but he says he has all he wants now and is running out of room to store the sawn boards. that's the way it goes sometimes.
i've been asking for some hickory wood handle material for several years and now it might just go to the bugs. dang. well anyway,
i'll see if my daughter can post some images
 
you do have to pay attention to run out when sawing with a bandmill by jacking up one end or the other of the log so to cut level through the length of the log. Riving it out with a froe would be a good bet for staright grain also, but i hardly have the strength to fight Mudzoory Hickory with a froe these days. lol
we cut four side slabs for straight grain handles and block cut the pith or center for whatever else.
i've made a few test handles from Walnut, Cherry,Ash,Osage Orange,Hard Maple and havn't had much success with any of that sort. Honey Locust seems pretty good. i Don't have any Black Locust but i suspect it would be excellent.
i thought the Osage would work but it splits easily if the grain is wonky (run-out).
 
Mark,

cityofthesouth, sent me this and it helped, hope it will help you!


RICKOFF, click the pic you want in "your photobucket", then look to the right side of the picture. You'll see "share this photo", under that you'll see a list of options. Click the box of code next to "IMG". It will copy it automatically, then paste that code into your reply. Use "edit post" here in the forum to just fix the post you already made, that way you don't have a bunch of posts in a row.

Last edited by cityofthesouth; 08-16-2016 at 06:04 PM.
 
RICKOFF said:
Mark,

cityofthesouth, sent me this and it helped, hope it will help you!


RICKOFF, click the pic you want in "your photobucket", then look to the right side of the picture. You'll see "share this photo", under that you'll see a list of options. Click the box of code next to "IMG". It will copy it automatically, then paste that code into your reply. Use "edit post" here in the forum to just fix the post you already made, that way you don't have a bunch of posts in a row.

Last edited by cityofthesouth; 08-16-2016 at 06:04 PM.
Click to expand...
ok. i see what i can do. thanks for the help
 
Interesting tidbit, or not perhaps. Hickory was used for baseball bats lasted forever, didn't really matter how you oriented the grain. Stiff and hard. Ash flexes and the "growth lines" are full of holes like a sponge. You orient the grain to forward/backward so as to hit the ball(label up or down). Because
Hitting the other way causes flaking. Maple has no whip. It's harder than ash. It's heavier. It's harder to see the grain. You can hit in any orientation. Maple breaks far more often than ash in baseball. Mlb has recommended, required that grain on maple be oriented the opposite of ash. Less catastrophic failures that way they claim. I believe it has been found it tends to crack instead of fly apart when hit that way. Maple doesn't suffer ashes flaking issue.
Birch is an odd bird. It is dense/less spongy like maple. It has whip like ash. It requires a break in period. It takes 50 or so hits before it preforms at its best. Almost like it needs to be compressed. It is oriented like maple.
How does all this relate to grain orientation and axes? Perhaps different woods need to be oriented in different ways on axes like bats for longevity and best performance. Perhaps not.
 
Birch is traditionally used with the grips of American scythe nibs because it deals well with compression without splitting. It crushes rather than splits.
 
Thefinaledge; baseball bats-axes, apples-oranges. You seem to have some experience with bats, tell us your experience with axes.
 
Old Axeman said:
Thefinaledge; baseball bats-axes, apples-oranges. You seem to have some experience with bats, tell us your experience with axes.
Click to expand...

Got a good bit of time on the splitting maul in my day. I have a soft spot for hatchets and boys axes. Double bits and antiques have turned my head the last couple of years.
That said, I am by no means claiming to be an expert in axes. I have hung about 7 axes hatchets and maul's in my life. Not exactly a professional lol. And I have every time found the handle with the grain as straight as possible all the way down the handle and running in the same manner as I described an ash bat. For no reason other than that was what my grandfather or father told me to do years ago.
Perhaps they are apples and oranges as you say, perhaps they have more in common than you think. I bring it up as a possibility that both face a swing and strike that place, as I see it, a similar pressure on the handle. And breaking is what both activities are trying to avoid, using the same woods.
 
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