Handle Grain Orientation

[jblyttle]

I have had enough of this. The funny part is I knew better than to post on here, but took a shot anyway. Thanks to all who have looked at "An Ax To Grind" with an eye that history and tradition matter. Remember, I never wrote it for the general public, that means you should never have laid eyes on it. I sure hope the keyboard axeman on here dont hurt themselves while trying to reinvent the wheel from their chair in front of their computers.
Bernie

It really is too bad that you feel that way. Most people here, myself included, view you in a favorable light and have learned quite a bit from your video and publication. These resources are often quoted and used as the unofficial "reference handbook". I thought that it was great when you joined to forum, a welcome addition to the community. However, this IS a community. There are many folks here who like to do different things, try different things. Not because they think that the traditional ways are wrong, but simply because they enjoy the process. Sometimes it's just fun to try different things. It is also fun and useful to discuss the merits of different approaches if only for the thought process. I have had ideas that I have talked out and the process of discussing brought out the best options. It is all about learning, and many people enjoy that process- including the failures. But sometimes something new and unexpected is also discovered.

You need to remember that this is a DISCUSSION forum. We talk. We toss ideas and knowledge back and forth. I give advise sometimes but I learn at least as much if not more from some of the great people here. I don't think that anybody told you that you were wrong or disrespected your experience, but you need to realize that if another person grew up using these tools and was given different advise from their trusted elders and that advise worked for them, they are not fools to be written off or wipe your hands of just because that advise differs from yours.

We would respect you as a valued elder if you would only let us. But if you require unquestioning acceptance and cannot tolerate other views, maybe this isn't the place for you. Taking your ball and going home and telling us that we are lucky to have been able to see your work as if we didn't deserve it somehow (it's OUR Forest Service by the way) is pretty disappointing.

I'm sad to see you go but I'm happy to let you.

 

[Chignecto Woodsman]

Holy cow! An entirely unwarranted put down.
When I first joined this forum there was a wonderful axe aficionado/historian//woodworker/wood purist gentleman from Belgium by the name of Ernest Dubois on board. Rude and crude folks continually disputed his lifelong-derived advice and ultimately he outright quit the forum. His quiet advice was worth the price of admission (to me) and yet 'we' lost him.
We (I, for one) cannot allow this to happen with Bernie.
I'd rather mull over and intelligently question one simple sentence of his (which would have been entirely derived from bona fide lifelong experience plus defending an unintended badge of notoriety) than have to put up with all the BS fantastic hearsay GD drivel from the majority of tin horn (but Google-prompted) 'loudly bleating sheep' that are also on here.

It's a put down to tell someone to stop talking down to us? You must be joking.

The guy is not infallible, and he makes mistakes like everyone else. Just look at his passive aggressive remark upon leaving, he had to resort to another put down. Perhaps he should have learned something from the axe for how to carry oneself in life, 'take time to sharpen the edge before cutting, otherwise you're just hacking away with a blunt object, being a danger to others and yourself.'

 

[rockman0]

It really is too bad that you feel that way. Most people here, myself included, view you in a favorable light and have learned quite a bit from your video and publication. These resources are often quoted and used as the unofficial "reference handbook". I thought that it was great when you joined to forum, a welcome addition to the community. However, this IS a community. There are many folks here who like to do different things, try different things. Not because they think that the traditional ways are wrong, but simply because they enjoy the process. Sometimes it's just fun to try different things. It is also fun and useful to discuss the merits of different approaches if only for the thought process. I have had ideas that I have talked out and the process of discussing brought out the best options. It is all about learning, and many people enjoy that process- including the failures. But sometimes something new and unexpected is also discovered.

You need to remember that this is a DISCUSSION forum. We talk. We toss ideas and knowledge back and forth. I give advise sometimes but I learn at least as much if not more from some of the great people here. I don't think that anybody told you that you were wrong or disrespected your experience, but you need to realize that if another person grew up using these tools and was given different advise from their trusted elders and that advise worked for them, they are not fools to be written off or wipe your hands of just because that advise differs from yours.

We would respect you as a valued elder if you would only let us. But if you require unquestioning acceptance and cannot tolerate other views, maybe this isn't the place for you. Taking your ball and going home and telling us that we are lucky to have been able to see your work as if we didn't deserve it somehow (it's OUR Forest Service by the way) is pretty disappointing.

I'm sad to see you go but I'm happy to let you.

I don't have an axe to grind in this melee. Outside of all the drama it is an educational thread.
Well said JB!

 

[quinton]

I have had enough of this. The funny part is I knew better than to post on here, but took a shot anyway. Thanks to all who have looked at "An Ax To Grind" with an eye that history and tradition matter. Remember, I never wrote it for the general public, that means you should never have laid eyes on it. I sure hope the keyboard axeman on here dont hurt themselves while trying to reinvent the wheel from their chair in front of their computers.
Bernie

I could call you a lot of things, Bernie but this would not be one of them;

quit·ter


/ˈkwitər/


noun
informal

noun: quitter; plural noun: quitters

a person who gives up easily or does not have the courage or determination to finish a task.

 

[Chignecto Woodsman]

But in competition a failed haft could cost you a championship and thousands of dollars. In that situation you swing only the best handle. Granted, the grind and weight might be different for axes used in the 60 second spurts of competition. But a top quality handle is still better in any axe use. A top quality handle isn't necessary - I've carved hafts out of tree branches that served their purpose. But if I'm going to the trouble of shaping a fine haft I'd be a fool to use less than the best available material. My labor is worth 5 times the cost of the materials. Why would I risk wasting my labor on an inferior product?

This depends on what it means to be inferior. Some would say a weak axe handle is inferior, and others would say a jarring axe handle is inferior. Cutting through a single log it is easy to deal with the jarring of a hard wood and thick handle, but not so much after the hour, and definitely not after four hours. It simply adds too much wear and tear on the body, and your bones and muscles won't have time to recover.

It's a similar tradeoff. Either you will have to spend the extra time dealing with aching bones and muscles or you may have to spend the extra time carving a new handle. Considering that handle damage tends to come from accidents, the latter option seems the better gamble since you may have to replace the handle either way.

 

[trailtime]

Sorry to hear that Bernie. I've been teaching a workshop on traditional tools for 15 years and have run over 100 trail maintainers through it. We always discuss "An Axe to Grind" and show your video as part of the program.

 

[quinton]

I'm glad we gave this topic a spin.
Here is the conclusion "I" have come to..

Horizontal grain is really only an option in a handmade haft from select, riven hickory. "I" have found over many years this grain orientation is just as durable as vertical grain, and "I" have also found it to be advantageous when bucking and felling.

I think horizontal grain in full sized, mass produced handles should be passed over as "run out"(the real deal breaker) could "possibly" be severe.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Fortunately the severity of runout is easily checked by just looking at the handle. In general, if there's only a little of it and the length of the bond between the affected rings is long, then I don't worry too much about it. I've only ever (unintentionally) broken something like two handles in my life, and both were when I was still in high school. If hickory, the best wood for handles, were as easily broken as it's often made out to be, we'd all have switched to fiberglass handles the moment they were available and never looked back. As I've repeated throughout this thread, not every handle needs to be a bullseye as long as it's on target. Rather than pass/fail there's a range of quality that's acceptable depending on the intended context of use.

 

[Square_peg]

Sure, lots of wood is acceptable for an axe handle. But I thought we were taking about what is best. That's more interesting to me.

I'll continue to select vertical grain hafts for most of my tools based on my 30 plus years in the trades and all the broken handles I've seen and experienced. You all are welcome to use whatever you like.

 

[gben]

One interesting thing to look into is the research done on the baseball bats that have broken in major-league play. In 2008 they started putting the labels of the bats on the end-grain side of the bat so players would have the ball hitting on the face-grain. This was done because recent university lab testing initiated by the leagues found that no matter what species of wood the bat was made out of, this decreased breakage by 30%.........

The study also showed that billets of wood that were split instead of sawed from a log were more likely to have minimum slope of grain, which means minimum "runout" as this forum worries about.

If the user of an axe misses with their strike and the handle hits instead of the head, that is when an axe is going to break, it is not going to break in the hands of a skilled user who gets the hits on the head of the axe and who might have a guard below the axe head.

I split wood for many years with thousands of axe and maul swings each year, and the only time I saw a handle break was when it hit instead of the head of the tool. Also it is the speed of the axe head that does work, not the force the user is putting on the handle while it is in contact with wood. If the axe-head is up to a high enough speed when it contacts wood for cutting or splitting, then the user could be holding the handle with two fingers at the time of impact and the same work will be done.

Splitting wood can put a terrific impact on an axe or maul head as the user is swinging the tool around 360 degrees picking up great speed and has gravity helping on the down-stroke. A swing like this can often be bounced right back off the top of a log if the log is especially knotty, and if there is a miss and the handle hits instead of the head of the tool there is no greater test for it, especially with a heavy maul head mounted.

At the conclusion of a 360 degree swing to split a log, the user can easily take one hand off the tool at the point of impact, and I would even say if it is done 100% correctly he could even let go of the handle of the tool at the point in time of the impact and after the log was split the tool would simply be laying edge-down on the dirt waiting to be picked back up. Of course for safety reasons this is not done.

In the end after reading whatever material I could find, I am sure that for a skilled user that misses very little it will not matter if the grain of his handle is oriented edgewise or sideways as long as it is straight as it travels from the head to the knob of the handle. If I was going to use an axe to make money, I would have a guard on the handle below the head so that a miss would not end my workday.

Having the grain on a handle oriented so it is running bit to poll might let the bare axe handle take a few more misses than with it oriented the other way, but I like the idea of the handle not warping to the side enough, and I am good enough with an axe that I like Roy Underhill's and the major baseball leagues ideas of having the grain running 90 degrees to the direction of travel.

Another interesting thing is how hard-maple bats are being used in major league baseball now. The university study shows that hard-maple is actually more strong the more dense it is. With all the Maple trees up here where I am in northern Pennsylvania, I think it is time to get a piece of it and make a handle......

P.S.: The other thing the university study showed is how bat strength increases exponentially with cross-section increase. This is common sense, but it shows that the slender handles they put on the axes decades ago are not going to be as strong as a handle that is thicker. It is simply a fashion trend to have a slender handle on an axe.....Having a handle with generous cross-section along it's length might easily make it stronger than a slender handle no matter what way the grain is oriented...

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

I think the overall takeaway regarding what's best is:

•No runout. This is easier to achieve with vertically aligned grain.

•High density.

•Vertical grain alignment for greatest strength.

•Horizontal grain for greatest shock mitigation and less likelihood of lateral warping.

 

[jblyttle]

P.S.: The other thing the university study showed is how bat strength increases exponentially with cross-section increase. This is common sense, but it shows that the slender handles they put on the axes decades ago are not going to be as strong as a handle that is thicker. It is simply a fashion trend to have a slender handle on an axe.....Having a handle with generous cross-section along it's length might easily make it stronger than a slender handle no matter what way the grain is oriented...

Interesting post, thanks. I would only disagree with the last statement. It isn't just a fashion trend, there is a benefit in snap and speed. I agree that it does give up strength, however, so you just have to decide which design is the one you prefer.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

It's similar to how while ash was the standard wood used for scythe snaths, the best mowers preferred ones made from cherry. It wasn't as strong, but it was light, lively, and took a bend well. The experience of the user meant that the lower strength wasn't required because they were better at not over-stressing the tool.

 

[Twindog]

I like long, slender handles a lot better than the thick handles that are in fashion today. I find slender handles to be faster, easier to control and hang on to.

My old Kelly Perfect has a long (36 inch), slender handle, and it is a joy to use. My new Helko Top Line has a thick, heavy, 32-inch handle, and is no fun at all to use.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

Then shave it down! The one thing I like about handles coming thick these days is it allows more leeway for the end user to finish it out to their preference. :thumbup:

 

[Tom Crain]

Boy !!!!!! I would love o get in on this --------But, where would I start??????

 

[BG_Farmer]

One interesting thing to look into is the research done on the baseball bats that have broken in major-league play. In 2008 they started putting the labels of the bats on the end-grain side of the bat so players would have the ball hitting on the face-grain. This was done because recent university lab testing initiated by the leagues found that no matter what species of wood the bat was made out of, this decreased breakage by 30%.........

The study also showed that billets of wood that were split instead of sawed from a log were more likely to have minimum slope of grain, which means minimum "runout" as this forum worries about.

If the user of an axe misses with their strike and the handle hits instead of the head, that is when an axe is going to break, it is not going to break in the hands of a skilled user who gets the hits on the head of the axe and who might have a guard below the axe head.

I split wood for many years with thousands of axe and maul swings each year, and the only time I saw a handle break was when it hit instead of the head of the tool. Also it is the speed of the axe head that does work, not the force the user is putting on the handle while it is in contact with wood. If the axe-head is up to a high enough speed when it contacts wood for cutting or splitting, then the user could be holding the handle with two fingers at the time of impact and the same work will be done.

Splitting wood can put a terrific impact on an axe or maul head as the user is swinging the tool around 360 degrees picking up great speed and has gravity helping on the down-stroke. A swing like this can often be bounced right back off the top of a log if the log is especially knotty, and if there is a miss and the handle hits instead of the head of the tool there is no greater test for it, especially with a heavy maul head mounted.

At the conclusion of a 360 degree swing to split a log, the user can easily take one hand off the tool at the point of impact, and I would even say if it is done 100% correctly he could even let go of the handle of the tool at the point in time of the impact and after the log was split the tool would simply be laying edge-down on the dirt waiting to be picked back up. Of course for safety reasons this is not done.

In the end after reading whatever material I could find, I am sure that for a skilled user that misses very little it will not matter if the grain of his handle is oriented edgewise or sideways as long as it is straight as it travels from the head to the knob of the handle. If I was going to use an axe to make money, I would have a guard on the handle below the head so that a miss would not end my workday.

Having the grain on a handle oriented so it is running bit to poll might let the bare axe handle take a few more misses than with it oriented the other way, but I like the idea of the handle not warping to the side enough, and I am good enough with an axe that I like Roy Underhill's and the major baseball leagues ideas of having the grain running 90 degrees to the direction of travel.

Another interesting thing is how hard-maple bats are being used in major league baseball now. The university study shows that hard-maple is actually more strong the more dense it is. With all the Maple trees up here where I am in northern Pennsylvania, I think it is time to get a piece of it and make a handle......

P.S.: The other thing the university study showed is how bat strength increases exponentially with cross-section increase. This is common sense, but it shows that the slender handles they put on the axes decades ago are not going to be as strong as a handle that is thicker. It is simply a fashion trend to have a slender handle on an axe.....Having a handle with generous cross-section along it's length might easily make it stronger than a slender handle no matter what way the grain is oriented...

Thanks for bringing the bat thing up. I think it is very relevant, particularly to overstrikes!

I looked into this also. If I understand correctly, the old practice of striking with the edge grain was to prevent delamination of ash bats, but when maple came along, the bats started breaking with that orientation and were found to be more resistant to breakage when rotated 90 degrees. I immediately thought that was relevant, but I haven't studied it enough to decide whether hickory is more like ash or maple, which I know sounds stupid, as hickory is classified ring porous like ash, but delving into it, it seems like it resists delamination and is in a completely different subgroup from ash. What are your thoughts?

 

[Steve Tall]

...I have searched for older articles on axe handle making..the only thing that pops up is from, An Ax to Grind.

Here's another source, and it contradicts the 1905 article from Australia that I posted earlier in this thread. This one dates back to 1860:

The Young Farmer's Manual, by S.E. Todd, 1860, p. 278

Note that these instructions say to put the poll side of the handle (E) toward the bark, and the bit side of the handle (D) toward the heart of the tree. Otherwise, if the handle warps ("springs"), a sideways warp would make the handle unuseable.

This is pretty similar to the Roy Underhill quote: "I prefer to orient the grain of the axe helve so that the growth rings run at right angles to its width, bark side toward the poll, heart side to the bit. If the growth rings are oriented in line with the direction of the swing, the helve will occasionally develop an undesirable curve to the side."

I also think it's notable that in contrast to the other sources that present THE right way to do it, Roy Underhill tells us his preference.

 

[Twindog]

Here's another source, and it contradicts the 1905 article from Australia that I posted earlier in this thread. This one dates back to 1860:

The Young Farmer's Manual, by S.E. Todd, 1860, p. 278

Note that these instructions say to put the poll side of the handle (E) toward the bark, and the bit side of the handle (D) toward the heart of the tree. Otherwise, if the handle warps ("springs"), a sideways warp would make the handle unuseable.

This is pretty similar to the Roy Underhill quote: "I prefer to orient the grain of the axe helve so that the growth rings run at right angles to its width, bark side toward the poll, heart side to the bit. If the growth rings are oriented in line with the direction of the swing, the helve will occasionally develop an undesirable curve to the side."

I also think it's notable that in contrast to the other sources that present THE right way to do it, Roy Underhill tells us his preference.

If you make a haft that way, you would have horizontal grain orientation and -- on a handle with those curves -- you'd have runout up the ying yang.

 

[BG_Farmer]

If you make a haft that way, you would have horizontal grain orientation and -- on a handle with those curves -- you'd have runout up the ying yang.

That's what I was thinking, and I like horizontal! We can only assume it is exaggerated for effect -- it looks almost like a scythe snath.