Has anyone ever heard of this practice?

littlehoot

littlehoot

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My dad told me that when he was young, people would often drill a small hole in the ends of hafts and handles and would fill them with linseed oil and let them sit until saturated. The holes would then be plugged. There were other steps to this, but I have forgotten them.

Has anyone ever heard of doing this?
 
You mean different than a lanyard hole? I suppose some Americans don't really see those as they are mainly for safety in cutting through ice. The hole adds some surface area for adding oil.
 
Not a lanyard hole, a hole was drilled in the butt end and filled with oil. The haft was then stood head end down with the oil standing in the hole. Sometimes it was refilled several times
 
I've heard of that being done before, but I think it's kind of gilding the lily.
 
There is a liquid that soaks into wood and self-seals, so it does not dry out. It is mainly targeted at tightening chair rungs but it works on wooden tool handles as well. Chair Lock?
 
I am familiar with that. This was boiled linseed oil, I guess to protect and lubricate the wood.
 
I doubt drilling a hole and filling it with oil would do much. The oil wouldn't soak in any more than oil does when placed on the surface.
 
I've heard of this but never tried it. For axes, the suggested hole size is about a quarter inch diameter, and a few inches deep. A reference to this from 1917:

An interesting stunt, described by a blacksmith who was formerly located in a section of the dry, arid west was as follows: He said that it is necessary to treat hammer handles in some way in order to preserve their usefulness and an excellent method he found was to bore a hole in the end of the hammer handle and to fill it with linseed oil. This hole should of course be small although it may be several inches in depth. After pouring in the linseed oil plug it with a piece of soft wood.


books


from The American Blacksmith: A Practical Journal of Blacksmithing and Wagonmaking, Volume 16, January 1917, page 99
 
RixAxe said:
I doubt drilling a hole and filling it with oil would do much. The oil wouldn't soak in any more than oil does when placed on the surface.
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"Wood is composed mostly of hollow, elongated, spindle-shaped cells that are arranged parallel to each other along the trunk of a tree." Think of a bundle of straws, to oversimplify, running in the same direction as the trunk.

If the run of the handle is from wood that was parallel to the run of the tree trunk, there is a pathway for the oil. This is why you do not want shingles cut in slabs at right angles to the run of the trunk - water would go right through them. On the contrary, the shingle cut along the run of the trunk, with its open end tucked under the shingle installed above it, is a barrier to water.
 
Thomas Linton said:
"Wood is composed mostly of hollow, elongated, spindle-shaped cells that are arranged parallel to each other along the trunk of a tree." Think of a bundle of straws, to oversimplify, running in the same direction as the trunk.

If the run of the handle is from wood that was parallel to the run of the tree trunk, there is a pathway for the oil. This is why you do not want shingles cut in slabs at right angles to the run of the trunk - water would go right through them. On the contrary, the shingle cut along the run of the trunk, with its open end tucked under the shingle installed above it, is a barrier to water.
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Hickory doesn't absorb water very well let alone oil.

I still say this is an ol' "husbands tale".

The best way to preserve wood is to seal it on the outside, not the inside with oil. IF you successfully somehow got oil all though all the fibers of the handle you would still to seal it on the outside.
 
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I actually witnessed my dad do this with a double bit handle, it took a long time, but the oil did penetrate the wood, he did also treat the outside, but prior to that, you could see the oil seeping out in places. It sat in his shop over a year. Best I can remember, it turned out a beautiful color.
 
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Makers, such as Gransfors, recommend periodic oiling of handles. The "stunt," if it works, is merely oiling the handle.

I found several descriptions of the "stunt." E.g.: http://www.ehow.com/how_4540492_prevent-axe-heads-from-coming.html

As it turns out, scientists study the permeability of wood to liquids. https://books.google.com/books?id=8...nepage&q=fluid migration through wood&f=false

It seems liquids can progress along the length of the run of the wood 1000 - 1,000,000 times as fast as transverse permeability, and the difference is greater in some hardwoods than in most softwoods.

I don't know if it works. Of those who feels this method is a "stunt," how many have tried it?

And I have a new OCD perfectionist term that I will probably never be able to use: "longitudinal penetrability." :)
 
If that research is true then there's definitely little point in drilling a hole because it just generates more "transverse" surface area while only bringing a small spot of the end grain closer to its antipode.
 
I remember reading that in an old carpenter book. After soaking though you would plug it with beeswax so you always had some handy for driving finish nails into hardwood.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
If that research is true then there's definitely little point in drilling a hole because it just generates more "transverse" surface area while only bringing a small spot of the end grain closer to its antipode.
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Well, it also creates a "reservoir" of oil inside the handle which could have months to soak in, both "transversely" and "longitudinally", to supplement the regular oiling on the surface (once a year?).

It hasn't been compelling enough for me to try it (yet), but some old-timers must have been convinced of its merits.
 
I don't think the oil could travel the full length of the handle. Even though hickory is a ring-porous wood, tyloses would block much of the downward flow, more so in a heartwood handle than in one made of sapwood. I would also venture to say that with white oak the hole would remain full of oil until the oil dried because of tyloses and medullary rays.

I think with hickory that the oil will be absorbed by the wood because we are only talking a couple of teaspoons of oil in hole that size. I also think that after a couple of treatments the hole would remain full because of the saturated wood fibers, and cured oil plugging any pathway it may have had. Just my .02 worth
 
I have a Council that has a hole at the end of the haft I posted it when I first got it.
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