Hanging/Wedging 101

L

Landodnal

Joined
Feb 28, 2013
Messages
59
Ok ladies and gents. I'm a newbie. I have a few questions and thoughts on installing a wedge(s) in an axe handle, let's call it wedging. I know these questions have probably been sporadically answered through the thousands of posts, but my experience with the search function for specific answers is like the old needle/haystack adage. So please, bare with me.

I just hung my first axe head last week. It's a double bit on a store bought, straight, oval (non-hexagonal) hickory handle. I sanded the lacquer off the handle first. The handle was quite a bit bigger than the eye of the head. I did mucho sanding, rasping, and filing. My first problem came when it seemed like there was a fine line between too big and too small. One second it was too big. I did just a little more sanding and next thing I know, it slides on relatively easy with a couple knocks with my hands. It wasn't soo easy as to fall off with gravity, but easier than I wanted it to. I extended the kerf a little farther down since I wanted the head seated low on the handle. I then sawed off the handle roughly an 1/8 inch above where the head was going to sit. Next came the wood wedge that came with the handle. I sanded the sides a bit since the wedge was a little wide for the eye. I put the head on, added some waterproof wood glue to the wedge (saw this online somewhere and it seemed like a good idea, could be wrong), and pounded the wedge home with a block of wood and a hammer. No splitting of the wedge occurred. I felt like I had it in pretty far. I didn't hit the wedge extremely hard cause I felt like I would just break it. After sawing off the leftover wedge, the wedge was about an 1/8 inch thick inside the eye. I'll post a pic. I then sanded the end. It stuck out about an 1/8 inch. I added BLO to the end and the rest of the handle. After a few days I tried it out (today), and it came loose. Not the wedge, just the head sliding off the handle. I took the head off. Inside, I found the wedge was only 1 inch down into the kerf. I'm sawing the old wedge out now. I'm going to get this thing in usable condition if I have to Indian-style leather wrap the head to the handle. Now for my myriad of questions. I hope by asking these questions I may help other newbies who may be confused and don't want to ask. I truly appreciate any help given by you seasoned vets.

1. How hard should it be to get the head on initially? I know some guys use the upside-down pound method. But my experience was one second upside-down pound doesn't work, next it slides on by hand.

2. How far down the head should the kerf go? Two-thirds? More or less?

3. Once the head is on, how close should the wedge be to the bottom of the kerf? When pounding the wedge home, how do you know you are in far enough?

4. It seemed like my wedge was way to thick to go in any farther than it did. Should I thin out the wedge to get it to the right thickness and depth level?

5. Should I use glue on the wedge? Or some other compound? Or nothing at all?

6. Should I use additional metal wedges, or not to use additional metal wedges?

7. As you can see in the picture of the eye, there is a little space between the wood and the metal of the head. The head has three teeth on each side that touch, but between the teeth it does not touch. Should these teeth be sunk into the wood with the wood filling the entire space?

8. If the answer to number 7 is yes, is there a way to soften the wood before installation to allow these teeth to sink into the wood? The wood seemed fairly hard. I've heard of people soaking the head of the handle in BLO before installing the head. Is this why? Should I soak the handle first?

I know that was a lot. Thanks again.

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Your problem appears to be the fit of the head in the center.

#1 mistake that gets made when folks are learning how to hang heads: They shave down the tongue of the handle (part that goes in the head) so that it fits in the axe's eye, but when they do this, the kerf is already cut. Thusly, since they want the head to be tight, the kerf closes on them. What i'm saying is, you have removed enough wood from the tongue when the head goes on easily, and the kerf doesn't close. I try to buy handles without pre-cut kerfs for this reason.

Wedges are thick, and they need space to fill up. Without that, the wedge won't get down in there, and there isn't enough expansion to do the job.

By the numbers:

1. The upside down method is a way to use momentum to seat heads the last little bit. I used to be a skeptic as well. It does work.

2. 2/3rds is fine, about 1/4 inch more than the length of your wedge.

3. get the wedge in as far as you can without hitting the bottom.

4. You can thin it out, but the needed thing is to make sure it has room to expand in to. Your above wedge didn't have that, that's why it failed.

5. Glue away, many guys do.

6. Be careful with metal wedges. Their purpose is to guard against wedge rise, when the wooden wedge pops up a little during work. They can easily split your handle in the eye though. I don't use them, but many do.

7. Here is where your hang has problems. Your tongue should seal all around the eye of the axe, no gaps. Go back and remove wood at the thin/narrow parts of the tongue to allow for more expansion in the center. All parts of the tongue should expand equally. Those teeth should be in the wood.

8. You don't need to soften the wood. The teeth will seat themselves as your drive the wedge. Using a finish on the handle is a different story. Most of us do that.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks jpeeler. Thorough job answering my questions. You hit the nail on the head with the factory kerf. When I first started trying to fit the head, the kerf would close within the first 1/4 inch of the head going on. I was like, "That's probably not supposed to do that." Hence all the sanding and rasping I had to do to get the head on and not close the kerf. This DB head must have a slightly smaller eye than most. I had to remove a lot of material, and then I started thinking that the sides of the tongue might be too thin. Can this happen, tongue too thin? Next time, I'll try having a thicker bit of wedge once inside the head.

I see now what you mean looking at the picture. The outside of the tongue is hitting but not the middle. I will try to sand the thin parts thinner. I am also trying to stay away from the metal wedges. They seem like maybe a last ditch effort before a handle goes in the burn pile, not something for a new handle. Thanks again.
 
Yeah, some double bits can have really thin eyes. I have double where the wedge is a full third of the thickness of the eye, with another third of the tongue on each side of it.

If you shave down the narrow part of the tongue, the wedge will go in farther, it will fit better, and the whole thing will seal. The wedge does become a large part of holding things together at the narrow ends of the eye, so don't worry there. Look through the thread called "what did you rehang today?" to get a look at some of the axes guys have rehung.
 
I really put some muscle behind my wedges. The greatest risk you run is breaking the wedge off. So I start slowly and lightly, and then gradually increase how hard I'm hitting it. I'll then flip the axe over so the wedge is resting on the ground, and I'll give a few more good whacks on the but of the handle. I can get another 1/4" to 1/2" of the wedge into the kerf doing this. I'll usually stop when the wedge stops moving (mark your progress with a pencil) or the wedge starts to break up a bit.

For shorter kerfed handles, like hudson bays, you'll need to trim a bit of the bottom off the wedge so that it doesn't prematurely bottom out while you're seating it.
 
Yeah, like Nick said, that wedge needs to be driven much harder...and the wedge is not too thick, it's too thin. Make sure the wedge doesn't bottom out in the kerf.
 
Have you gouys ever had a head jump up while driving the wedge? Happened to me a couple of times- not much, maybe 1/16" but I can see where the head had seated and noticed it rose slightly while driving the wedge home.

Bill
 
lmalterna said:
Have you gouys ever had a head jump up while driving the wedge? Happened to me a couple of times- not much, maybe 1/16" but I can see where the head had seated and noticed it rose slightly while driving the wedge home.

Bill
Click to expand...

It seems like I have, but I can't really remember. I have good luck by seating the head very tightly at the bottom and then start the wedge gently. Only pound the wedge as hard as you need to in order to just move it a little at a time. Once the wedge is very well seated, and I'm happy with the fit (I know that I am getting all the wedging force that I was shooting for) - I drive them really hard. I do a lot of test fitting with the wedge, just like with the handle to the eye.
 
You know, I've had that problem with Hudson Bay patterns before. It's as if the bit is so heavy that when you are pounding the head on or the wedge in the forces are super uneven because of that long, heavy bit. The bit side tends to move around and get a little sloppy. I'm not really into the HB's so I've only hung a couple of them.
 
Great response from jpeeler on all issues.


jpeeler said:
I try to buy handles without pre-cut kerfs for this reason.
Click to expand...

I wish they were all sold this way. Fitting the axe is easier when the haft isn't kerfed yet because you don't get the compression that binds the head onto the haft. And if you can't cut your own kerf then you shouldn't even be re-hafting your own axe anyway. Plus they often do a crappy job of centering the kerf. When working with eye ridges an un-kerfed haft is almost a must.


7. Here is where your hang has problems. Your tongue should seal all around the eye of the axe, no gaps. Go back and remove wood at the thin/narrow parts of the tongue to allow for more expansion in the center. All parts of the tongue should expand equally. Those teeth should be in the wood.
Click to expand...

Good advice. Another option for correcting this would be to taper the edges of your wedge so that it fills the center tightest.
 
M3mphis said:
Yeah, like Nick said, that wedge needs to be driven much harder...and the wedge is not too thick, it's too thin. Make sure the wedge doesn't bottom out in the kerf.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice everyone. I haven't had time to give it another shot. If anyone is interested, I'll post a new pic and let you know how it turns out after I take all of this new info into account.

M3mphis- I think the way I stated that was a little confusing. I agree the piece of wedge inside the eye in the picture is too thin and needs to be thicker compared to each side of the tongue. What I should have said was, before I started, the wedge had too obtuse of an angle from the thin end to the thick end. As I hammer the wedge in, the steep angle only allows one inch of the wedge to go down into the kerf before becoming extremely difficult. There was a large gap between the wedge and the bottom of the kerf. If I thin out that angle a little by sanding the face of the wedge, I may be able to get the wedge closer to the bottom of the kerf, without bottoming out; while at the same time hitting the wedge harder, resulting in a thicker wedge to tongue ratio and hopefully making for a tighter fit. I could be wrong in this thinking, but it seems logical. Let me know.

Also, anyone know a good place to purchase handles without factory kerfs?
 
Yes, you sometimes have to thin down a wedge to get it in the tongue enough.

As for handles, you could try House Handle. They have options to get handles without wax, so they might be able to save you some without kerfs cut. I myself do hang handles with kerfs precut- you just have to know to take extra 'meat' off the tongue. Handle should go in without squeezing the kerf, so if you see the kerf close, you need to take off more wood.
 
Reading this, about to begin a rehanging, made me think there's got to be an easy way to keep the kerf open during fitting. Well, I think I finally found a use for those little metal wedges that come with a lot of handles:

j8h6o9.jpg


I know it looks precarious, but I did fit a head like this and these stayed in and were not in the way. Plus they are super easy to install and remove. Anyway, give it a try, maybe come up with something better.

On the asking for advice side of things, why do you think this wedge only went this far in (about half the depth of the kerf)? Is this a problem with it being too thick, that is tapering too rapidly (I pounded on this thing and it was not budging)?

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Thanks.
 
I try to keep in mind that the tip of the tongue of the handle needs to be thinner than where the bottom of the head seals around the tongue. A good axe head will have an eye that is bigger on top to allow for expansion, but not by much. You wanna fit a thick wedge in there, you need to give it room to expand.
 
lmalterna said:
Have you gouys ever had a head jump up while driving the wedge?
Click to expand...

Weird. Had that happen on the last axe I hung. I got the wedge well started, then put a piece of 6x6 down on the shop floor, flipped the axe over, set it wedge-end-down on the piece of wood and used a wooden mallet on the end of the handle. My logic process was that it would pull the head up tight against its seat while driving the axe down onto the wedge. Seems to have worked. In fact I think it worked better than anything else -- I'll try it again on the next axe.
 
So I finally had time for my second attempt at hanging my first axe. I appreciate all the help you guys have offered. So far this attempt at wedging seems to have come out successful. The wedge to tongue ratio is much higher this time. I would say the wedge takes up at least a third of the eye. There are only a couple very small gaps between the tongue and the eye and I think they were caused by sanding the tongue out of round, not a lack of pressure from the wedge. And most importantly, I gave it a few chops on a piece of pine, and the head stayed put. Things I did differenty: 1. I hit the wedge a heck of a lot harder this time. I was scared I'de break it the first time. 2. I sanded the outsides of the tongue (the thinner edges) more so there was room for the fat center part of the tongue to expand (thanks jpeeler). And 3. I let the length of the wedge run past the tongue to run from one side of the eye to the other. The only problem I had was that the wedge split in three different places toward the center of the wedge. I used glue on the wedge again so I just filled the cracks with wood glue and let it dry before I cut the excess wedge off. You can hardly see the places where it split. And it doesn't seem to have affected the integrity of the hang. Here are a few pictures of the finished product. Thanks again for all of your help!

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