Making a broad axe haft

mattyak said:
The ability to work outside without losing any fingers or toes would be pretty nice too. Im happy when the temp gets to zero (chuckle).. makes it feel balmy
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Yeah, I have too much crap in the garage to work in there but at least I have a covered patio to work under. Typical winter day down here is 40°F and drizzling. All you need to work outdoors is a light jacket and a roof.

Humppa said:
I have to give you an advice: Use wooden wedges instead of the iron ones. Get on the top of the haft a crosscut and add there the wedges. Imo this works much better than any iron ones. May hafts are of ashwood, so the wedges are also made of ash.

Kind regards
Andi
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Thanks, Andi. I'll probably make my wedge out of some of this Oak or else some dry London Plane I have on hand. The London Plane is even harder than the oak with a coarse gritty grain. I think it'll make a nice wedge.
 
That's looking great. Don't know if you considered it, but FWIW here's my two cents. I would rough the half out, put sealent on the ends and put it some place to dry out. If you don't have a moisture meter just weigh it once in awhile untill it stops loosing weight (i.e. water).

Anyway, thanks for posting. Someday I want to make one like yours.
 
I make most of mine green, the only thing to worry about is the wedge loosening a bit. I would just cut a good deep kerf and leave the wedge proud so you can tighten as it dries. I've never had any real trouble from using green wood.
 
don't know if you guys have ever tried this.
you can boil green wood to cure it.
works good when you need to make a chisel handle or such

anyway it would be a pretty good sized kettle or drum to hold a long piece of wood but it works.

excellent photos of work in progress, thanks for posting

buzz
 
rjdankert said:
I would rough the half out, put sealent on the ends and put it some place to dry out. If you don't have a moisture meter just weigh it once in awhile untill it stops loosing weight (i.e. water).
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Not a bad idea. I wonder if I'll have difficulty working with that second half of my branch after it's been dried. My gut tells me that I'll be using sanders more than rasps to shape the dry one. OTOH a dry piece might be more dimensionally stable and less apt to twist after being shaped.

It seems like an oscillating spindle sander would do a nice job on an axe handle. Sadly I don't own one.
 
Square_peg said:
Yeah, I have too much crap in the garage to work in there but at least I have a covered patio to work under. Typical winter day down here is 40°F and drizzling. All you need to work outdoors is a light jacket and a roof.



Thanks, Andi. I'll probably make my wedge out of some of this Oak or else some dry London Plane I have on hand. The London Plane is even harder than the oak with a coarse gritty grain. I think it'll make a nice wedge.
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It´s good, that I could help you. I gonna make a photo of mine, what I meant with that crosscut. And the added wooden wedges.
Glad, that I could help you!

Kind regards
Andi
 
rjdankert said:
That's looking great. Don't know if you considered it, but FWIW here's my two cents. I would rough the half out, put sealent on the ends and put it some place to dry out. If you don't have a moisture meter just weigh it once in awhile untill it stops loosing weight (i.e. water).

Anyway, thanks for posting. Someday I want to make one like yours.
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A great place to dry wood is in your house's crawl space. Gets HOT and dry in there. My dad mills his own boards and dries them up in the crawl space.
 
Square_peg said:
Not a bad idea. I wonder if I'll have difficulty working with that second half of my branch after it's been dried. My gut tells me that I'll be using sanders more than rasps to shape the dry one. OTOH a dry piece might be more dimensionally stable and less apt to twist after being shaped.
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The dried wood will be harder so you will not be able to work it as easily as green. As to dimensional stability (hope I'm not getting over my head here) drying is not the only factor. Some wood is refered to as "stress" wood. Sometimes when trees grow they are under stress. A tree wants to grow straight but any force on it while its growing will put stress in the wood. Branches are probably always stress wood because of the way they grow. As I understand it, the stress is still in the wood after it dries. When you work stress wood you reduce the mass and allow the stress to exert itself. My only point is that stress wood is not predictable. Not that any piece of wood is, but limbs are highly unlikely to produce dimensional stability.

So, after all that blah, blah, how will that effect your axe handle? Beats the heck out of me.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Gets HOT and dry in there. My dad mills his own boards and dries them up in the crawl space.
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Maybe in summer. But at least here in the Great Northwet a crawl space is neither warm nor dry during winter.
tongue.gif
 
rjdankert said:
As I understand it, the stress is still in the wood after it dries. When you work stress wood you reduce the mass and allow the stress to exert itself. My only point is that stress wood is not predictable. Not that any piece of wood is, but limbs are highly unlikely to produce dimensional stability.
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My 29 years of carpentry experience totally agrees with what you've said here. You really can't predict what stresses you will unleash as you work a piece of of wood. One piece of wood will come thru the table saw with two halves just as straight as arrows. The next may come out as two bows and the third might make a pair of pincers as it's running out of the saw.

I'm hoping that I'll see a little less of that in this piece just because I'm not asking it to be something that it's not. That is, I'm not taking a crooked piece of wood, cutting a straight piece out of it and hoping it stays straight as it dries. Rather, I'm taking a crooked piece of wood and hoping it stays a crooked piece of wood. I think my chances are a little better. But I realize that anything could happen.
 
That´s the way I add my wedges inside the haft...

IMG_1212.jpg


I hope you know, what I mean with that "crosscut" - one cut vertical and the other horicontal. Then add the three wooden wedges.

I hope this could help.

Kind regards
 
I just do the classic single wooden wedge running fore to aft, possibly with a small metal wedge added if the fit isn't tight enough with the wooden wedge alone.
 
Yeah, I know what you mean.

This way I made mine a couple of years ago in the past. I tried this actual and it was nice. The haft fits fantastic and doesn´t get slingering around, even then air is absolutely without humidity. That was the problem I had with, what I did before I tried that one out.

I think your version is not better than mine, and mine not better than yours. Everybody does it a little bit different. So we´re talking right now.

Kind regards
Andi
 
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