How do you handle it?

W

wdmn

Joined
Nov 29, 2013
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Because this is a long post I'm going to state my intent: to start a discussion on key points of handle making as well as handle modifying, and maybe purchasing.

My interest in axe restoration was partially due to my reluctance to spend 140 bucks on a good axe (having spent time on bladeforums I now know that there are good axes that don't cost that much).

I had been thinking about buying an axe when I came across three old heads all at once, and a fourth followed not long afterwards. The next step is getting handles, this has proven a lot more difficult than I thought. Handles are available but, as has been said before, they are not quite what they used to be.

Some of you may have seen my attempt at handle making in the thread "Any ideas?"; it 'turned' out well, but didn't end well.

Now I've just received a couple of handles from a well known handle company. Unfortunately they were sent lacquered though I requested that they not be. Also one had clear heartwood and one had a wedge that is too small for the eye:

15dvt4i.jpg

(above: wedge resting on top of neck)

The first thing that strikes me about these is how thick they are! They are like clubs. All the heads I have came on nice sleek handles (though the grain was not always great), and the one I made was also slender. I cannot accustom myself to carrying an axe that has a handle almost as heavy as the head and thick enough to be used as a club! I know at least some of you agree.

21c8fic.jpg

(Above: a 20" handle and the 2 pound head I bought it for... definitely not sleek).

My attempt at a handle was done with white ash, because that was what was available. Since I've gotten the two I ordered (plus the one I picked up from a country store), I've learned that hickory is much more difficult to work with: it does something called "tearout" when you try to whittle it. That is, whole strips of wood come out when you try to shave off a small amount. It also dulls knives very quickly.

bf3nky.jpg

(Above: tearout on a hickory handle).

Anyway, I know that there has been scattered discussion about handles and how people sand off the lacquer etc. but I wanted to have a focused thread for teh sake of people interested in this kind of thing.

mv6r0k.jpg

(Above: comparing girth)

Knowing that people do things different I was hoping to start a discussion on handle making as well as handle modifying, and maybe purchasing.
Questions for handle makers:

How do you make your wedges?

What tools do you use to prepare the neck (not sure this the right term for the part that fits into the eye)?

Should the shoulder gradually taper into the neck or should their be a distinct edge/ledge?

how slender is too slender, how chunky is too chunky?

how wide should the kerf be?


QUestions for axe handle modifiers:
Where do you get your handles?

How do you modify them (what do you do to them, and what do you do it with)?

What do you do for strange shaped eyes, such as ovals rather than tear drops?

2akl18k.jpg


How close does the eye size of the handle have to be to the eye?

2j196s6.jpg

(above: is this gap too big?)

Are there ways around tearout with hickory?

how wide should the kerf be?

28hd7q9.jpg

(above: is this kerf too narrow?)

For handle purchasers:
Maybe we could review the handle options out there; not just list them but offer up our experiences with them.

Has anyone purchased handles from Peavey Manufacturing? how do they compare with the rest, I assume they are pretty similar in terms of bulkiness.


What do you do for strange shaped eyes, such as ovals rather than tear drops?

This includes room for stories, like the one I heard about the Mennonite turner who people used to go to for baseball bats and axe handles.



Thanks,

2zgum15.jpg
 
Wow. Lotta questions. But that's good.

First off, clubs. Yeah, that's how they come these days. House handles are (in general) a bit slimmer than most handles but still need some work. Link handles aren't as slim as House. Both seem to be decent wood if you get a decent grain alignment. Tennessee Hickory has IMO the finest wood between these three makers. But their handles are fat clubs - almost like baseball bats. Still, for my own use I will usually choose TH and accept that I'm gonna have to do a bunch of work to get it down to size. If I have the time I'll do it with a spoke shave. If I'm in a rush I'll use a coarse grit disc on an angle grinder.

What you call the neck I do with a coarse wood rasp and a 4-in-hand wood rasp. I also do my swells with rasps and sanders as the curves I like are too tight of radius for a spoke shave.

Re: wedges. I cut my own out of hardwood. I did a pile out of London Plane that were excellent but I've run through those. My latest batch are elm. I cut them on the chop saw.

Re: tear out. You're cutting against the grain. Reverse direction and you'll be fine. The grain will likely change - possibly several times - along the length of the handle. Watch for it, feel for it, work accordingly. It's not so bad once you recognize the grain changes.

Re: oval eyes. Those are likely European axes. They tend to have larger eyes as they historically used ash instead of hickory (hickory is native to N. America). Ash is weaker and requires a larger handle to have adequate strength.

How close does the eye size of the handle have to be to the eye?
Click to expand...

The fit shown in your picture is fine. I like to have a little room for the wedge to work with.

Gotta stop before this post turns into a book.
 
Great Answers from Peg.

I'm a guy that modifies handles, usually from Tennessee Hickory Handles. For example, I recently was hafting a 3.5 lb double bit head, and was looking to make it a comfortable, all-day felling axe. Handle to be about 32-33". For this, I have a THH 36" blank that might as well be a log. I have a lot of experience with draw knives, so that's what I use most of the time. The end swell gets chopped for length, the bulge at the tongue gets almost eliminated, and the whole handle is reduced a good deal, with the thinnest portion down near the new swell. There are no abrupt changes, just gradual curves.

As for the actual hanging, your picture of the eye of that axe is what I go for. If your handle has no kerf already, don't cut it until you've fit the handle in the eye. Test fitting the head of the axe should not close the kerf if it's already cut. Good axe heads have eyes that are bigger on the top than the bottom to allow for expansion of the kerf, but you might want to help this process by adding taper to the top/end of the tongue. My ideal would be a wedge that, when fully driven, is about as thick as either side of the remaining tongue of the haft.

As for tear-out, as Peg said, it just takes experience. Go slow. When you're cutting down a swell, traversing grain layers, you might have to stop going that direction when the swell stops because the grain suddenly reverses. I have made some serious cut-ins to a handle before because I didn't read the grain right/well enough, but that handle was still used. Just think of it as an excuse to thin down more!

John
 
Anytime I find N.O.S. or old hafts that haven't been hung yet at flea markets or estate/ garage sales I buy them up. You can almost always get them for less than $5 and the old handles have a much slimmer more finished shape. I've gotten a couple from house and tennessee hickory and then put in an hour or 2 of work on them to get them slimmed down and evened up, they're more like handle blanks. They give you the general form, but definitely require finishing.
 
wdmn said:
...
Questions for handle makers...
how slender is too slender, how chunky is too chunky?
...
Questions for axe handle modifiers...
How do you modify them (what do you do to them, and what do you do it with)?
...
Click to expand...

"The Devolution of Ax Handles" has measurements of handle thickness:
www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/820720-Introduction-and-quot-The-Devolution-of-Ax-Handles-quot

"Thinning Handles" has instructions for modifying existing handles:
www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/827527-Thinning-Handles-(by-Peter-Vido)
 
Thanks to everyone for responding.

Square_peg and jpeeler, do you order from the hickory handle ebay store (the Tennessee handle sight suggests its only for bulk purchases)? If so, are the shipping costs really as high as they say? how much do you usually pay for a handle?

I did find that if I went in one direction there was a lot less tearout, but still some; I will try paying closer attention to the subtleties of the grain.

Thanks for the post Steve Tall; sp and jp you both use methods (spoke shave and draw knife) that this guy thinks are slower. Have you tried the method in the link "Thinnning Handles", and/or do you have any response to that post?

Does anyone make handles that fit european style eyes?


Thanks a lot,
 
I buy from the eBay store, and if you're buying one handle, yeah the shipping can be bad. I buy multiple handles at once, save on combined shipping.

The thing about working in parallel to the wood grain is that the grain can change 3-4 times in a single length of the haft, especially if you're working a very straight-grained piece. Keep at it, take small bites.

The article Steve presented doesn't like draw knives, and prefers to use a large knife/hatchet to hew the sides of the handle. If that person prefers that method, then fine, but I have many years of experience working with a draw knife, so I prefer that. The reason they mention is that the draw knife has problems "catching a piece of wood and prying it away from the intended depth." Funny, that sounds like an operator error, not a tool default, and is the exact reason I don't use hatchets or kukris.

Try all the tools you can and see what you like.
 
I am no ax handle expert, but I have whittled a few hickory pick handles down to fit the eye on a pole axe head I used for throwing. I ran into the tear out issue. As others have said, go slow. A very sharp, thin knife helps. Don't try to remove much material, or take too long of a stroke.

Found that helps.
 
As for the odd eye measurements, every now and then you can find handles with oversized tongues so you can do a custom fit. Really your only option for a secure hold. I have some shorter ones from THH that I use on broad axes with odd-shaped eyes.
 
Might be too much space but maybe not. If the wood gets wider relative to the eye as you fit the handle upward and in, it may work out. If you can keep a tight fit at least bottom half of the eye to the handle, then tight wedging should take care of the space on top. A solid fit of the handle at the bottom of the eye is important. If you don't have it solid there, you will have problems later.
 
Wdmn,

What I would be worried about with that is the fact that the front of the wedge (where the handle is narrow) is going to want to drive farther than the back of the wedge. It could also deform the tongue so much that it snaps or deforms the handle. If it were me, I wouldn't try hanging the head with that handle.

Only other option would be to add shims that would fill space in the eye of the head to make it more regular shaped. Don't know if that would work out though.

John
 
WDMM - thanks for starting this and thanks to all the axe-perts for sharing their experience. Hope this keeps going. I've done about 7 rehandles so far and have learned quite a bit through failure and poor execution.

Couple of my adders:
- Thin out the thick sides of the handle to the same thickness as the thickest part of the axe before you put the head on
- When you have the head about where you want it use a pencil and put a line on both sides of the head on the handle. Then remove it and cut the kerf so its 2/3 of the way down from the top line
- Use BLO on both the wedge and the kerf before driving it hone
- Make sure your wedge is wide enough to fill the whole eye. I use my Mora to thing it enough to just fit the whole eye when you initially insert it and then it should be a little wider so the edges are shaved off a bit when you drive it in
- Too thin of a wedge will be set too easily and won't hold the head. Too wide won't reach the bottom of the kerf and is also not good.
- Leave roughly 3/16" of the handle and wedge remaining on the top of the head after setting the wedge to help hold the head in place.
 
jpeeler said:
If your handle has no kerf already, don't cut it until you've fit the handle in the eye.
Click to expand...

YES!

The handle binds less when the kerf isn't cut yet because it doesn't have the spring action of the kerf. And add the fact that most handle makers can't cut a decent kerf to save their lives. I wish they all came with no kerf. If you can't cut a kerf then you shouldn't be hanging an axe.
 
wdmn said:
Square_peg and jpeeler, do you order from the hickory handle ebay store (the Tennessee handle sight suggests its only for bulk purchases)? If so, are the shipping costs really as high as they say? how much do you usually pay for a handle?
Click to expand...

I will occasionally buy on ebay if I see something special I want, but I have a local logging supply that stocks many TH handles. Buying local costs me about $12/ea.
 
Thank you all, and to square peg for the links to the maul handles. Once I get up a decent sized order I'll try that out. Also I might make another attempt at making a handle, so maybe this Swedish head would be a good one to make it for.

I found a handle at a country feed store that also sells some tools. It's 21" and just happened to have a neck around the right size to fit the mystery axe head I had previously mounted on a dead-ash handle (see "Any ideas?")

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of how it was before I worked on it, but it was definitely chunky.

akg1mw.jpg


The handle seemed a little bit twisted. I corrected it as best I could in the time that I had.

4g0vom.jpg


Not sure if I mounted it close enough to the shoulder, because well, I'm not sure really where the shoulder starts. On the old handles I have the neck doesn't taper into the shoulder, there is a ledge that the head sits on. In any case I didn't want to loose too much length by dropping it down further. 21" is just barely enough handle to use 2 hands; why don't people make 23" ones? perfect length.

6jlw1k.jpg


And I made the mistake of not thinning my wedge enough. I don't think it reached the bottom of the kerf.

2ltn435.jpg
 
wdmn said:
Not sure if I mounted it close enough to the shoulder, because well, I'm not sure really where the shoulder starts.
Click to expand...

Sometimes while hanging an axe I'll shape the shoulder to the head, working both above and below the shoulder. The shoulder starts and stops where ever you make it start and stop.


And I made the mistake of not thinning my wedge enough. I don't think it reached the bottom of the kerf.

2ltn435.jpg
Click to expand...

Looks fine. You don't ever want the wedge to bottom out. The only thing that should stop the wedge is the tightness in the kerf. If it bottoms out it will be loose or soon come loose.
 
Square_peg said:
Sometimes while hanging an axe I'll shape the shoulder to the head, working both above and below the shoulder. The shoulder starts and stops where ever you make it start and stop.


Looks fine. You don't ever want the wedge to bottom out. The only thing that should stop the wedge is the tightness in the kerf. If it bottoms out it will be loose or soon come loose.
Click to expand...


Its about time some one mentioned moving the shoulder up instead of always setting the head further down. I always work from both ends. Its much faster for me, and that shoulder needs to be thinned anyway.:thumbup:
 
I'll echo Square_peg on carving with the grain to avoid splintering.

I like to use a pocket plane for shaping. You have more control than with a knife or even a spokeshave and it won't dig too deep into the wood. You can also control the blade depth which is handy when you're getting close to a fit and don't want to take off too much material. I've learned to wear a glove on the hand pushing the plane to avoid splintering myself. If I'm working raw wood and still removing a lot of material (with a blade) I'll soak it or wrap it in a damp towel for a few hours and when the wood swells it's much easier to shave without splintering, needless to say this won't help at all if you're sanding or using a rasp. Let it dry before final shaping as some woods will have odd bits of grain that will pop out a bit when you wet them and there goes all your careful sanding.
 
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