Questions re: hickory for handles

Square_peg said:
Most important id no run out. Then I look for hafts that show 12-15 growth rings per inch though anything in the 5-20 range is fine. For axes I prefer vertical grain. For pulaskis I'll look for 45* grain. Vertical grain breaks too easily below the narrow eye of a pulaski, 5/8" vs. 3/4" for double bits.
Click to expand...
Why are you looking for 12-15 rings per inch?
 
Regarding the sapwood vs. heartwood debate, it looks like a clear either-or situation, however there is a possibility that there is a third option: it could be that both of these options are true but in different settings.
When a specific study is done, there are always explicit and implicit conditions and presumptions with the study in question. If those differ significantly, then the different studies cannot be compared directly since they are referring to apples vs oranges.
We don’t know the drying regiment or the actual species of hickories which were involved in the study which found no difference between the strength properties of hickory heartwood and sapwood. Also, I don’t know if properties of wood have changed significantly from the time of that study to the tome for example Bernie worked. This is not something very unlikely, since we know that in the past people realized there was huge difference between first and second growth hickory. there was a big change in climate between the 1920 s and 1950-1960s or later, soil composition could have changed, drying practices, the way forests were managed ( which would affect the way young trees would grow), the distribution of hickory species among the type of hickories used for handle wood at a given time etc.
I can see that it might have been a time when there was no significant difference between the sap- and heartwood strength properties of a given group of hickories which were dried a given way, but then things changed 50-60 years later.

That is why I think it is not good to rush and dismiss either the decades long personal experience of people like Bernie or studies from the FSL. Ican see how hurtful could be for Bernie to think that people quoting those studies dismiss his own decades long experience. The logical response to this is to dismiss in return the studies. On the other hand, as I said it above, it could be that those studies were not flawed but simply measured different entities, even if they were hickory wood. Of course, it is not impossible that those studies were flawed or even corrupted by financial interest, but it seems that in the early 20th century corruption in science was still not so prevalent as today. Hickory was more abundant and wood processing, handle manufacturing and use was more decentralized than today, handle wood production was not a monopoly or oligopoly.
In my line of work ( laboratory research) it was a repeated experience of mine that many times controversies turned out to be false dichotomies due to the alternative sides actually studied and reported significantly different subjects, despite thinking they were talking about the same things or phenomena.
That is MY personal experience, which I think might be relevant for this discussion too and I am ready to debate rationally anyone who is challenging it.
 
Last edited:
I tried doing some digging to find out more about the testing procedures and was able to find this information from the 1910's.

Edit to add: here are some excerpts specifically addressing red vs. white hickory but there are also lots of figures and tables and descriptions of testing methods in it. I know that question has been raised in the past that because a hickory shortage was predicted at this time that there may have been bias in suggesting that purchasers not discriminate on the basis of heartwood vs. sapwood but it's quite specific about what qualities make actual differences under what settings and details the inferior grades of hickory almost excoriatingly as well as detailing other kinds of wood that may be used as suitable stand-ins for for hickory under what circumstances so I find that unlikely in-context.

n61_w648

n63_w648

n68_w648

n69_w648

n70_w648
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
Square_peg said:
Because 14/inch is the sweet spot between toughness and strength. I've posted this clipping before but it won't show up on the new forum software. You'll have to copy the link and paste it in a new browswer winbdow.

Click to expand...
I believe that the density would override the ring count, regardless of rings per inch. It does sound like they tested some strong high ring count hickory in the link you posted.
 
Square_peg said:
Bernie sent me this example of why he doesn't like red/white mix handles. They can split at the change. The second image is the money shot.

Click to expand...
It was considered common knowledge at one time that mixed handles split. I thought it still was.

We should have all been taking pictures of broken hickory handles for future generations.
 
As noted previously, there is a change in the moisture absorption rate between heartwood and sapwood so it makes me wonder if the chief problem would be experienced in cases where a dual-type handle was subjected to repeated STRONG shifts in humidity where the differential had opportunity to be more pronounced. Perhaps that would lead to separation of the fibers along the boundary over time, while also explaining why in many cases it's never an issue since the wood was sealed and/or subjected to only smaller/slower humidity shifts.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
Edit to add: here are some excerpts specifically addressing red vs. white hickory but there are also lots of figures and tables and descriptions of testing methods in it. I know that question has been raised in the past that because a hickory shortage was predicted at this time that there may have been bias in suggesting that purchasers not discriminate on the basis of heartwood vs. sapwood but it's quite specific about what qualities make actual differences under what settings and details the inferior grades of hickory almost excoriatingly as well as detailing other kinds of wood that may be used as suitable stand-ins for for hickory under what circumstances so I find that unlikely in-context.

n61_w648

n63_w648

n68_w648

n69_w648

n70_w648
Click to expand...
Thanks, FortyTwoBlades, very informative.
I liked that they stress the importance of the region, tree age, tree trunk parts ( butt or nearby parts) and also how the availability was shrinking already around 1910.
I think we should recognize that hickory trees as biological entities are variable. Wood strength is just one of many traits that can be variable. The range the means of the range can and do change with time, location, especially if thee is not only a natural but also artificial selection applied.
The industrial rate cutting means selection from biological point of view. It is entirely possible that by the mid 20th Century there was a shift regarding the strength properties of the hickory wood. If strength properties affect growth rate and/or viable seed production, that means that faster growing and/or maturing trees might have better chance to leave more progeny thus changing the prevalent phenotype.
Also, there was a shift from the dominant locales providing the most handle wood.
There is anecdotal reports that Appalachian hickory is allegedly superior to hickory wood from other places, with claims that it is denser and more shock-resistant than the alternatives.
Lastly, an unspecified but likely implied factor is that in the test they tested wood dried down to a specific humidity and then kept around that humidity. Most axes showing handle failure are ones exposed to repeated cycles temperature and humidity changes, sometimes quite extreme ones. As I posted earlier in this thread, it is not unreasonable to presume that humidity gradients be different in heartwood and the sapwood (the color in the heartwood is due to organic deposits in the pores and cell spaces, some of them hydrophobic, which would affect rates of rehydration or drying). It is not unreasonable to think that the biggest changes in these rates occur at the border between the sapwood and heartwood portions, thus a grossly mismatched swelling and shrinking leading to first gradually, then catastrophically expanding splits, especially if there is already an existing difference in strength properties even at the same humidity due to the consequence of - unintended -selection by human forestry, and/or natural variations between different regions.
 
I doubt we're seeing huge changes in the species morphology itself but since husbandry practices came into use we're seeing consistently high-grade second-growth hickory and it's just a matter of properly grading the stuff, which does seem to be something that's slipped in terms of its rigor.
 
Morphology, even dendro-microscopic architecture of the wood might be the same or very similar, but there are other properties which might be relevant for strength, e.g. average thickness and spacial distribution of the cell wall material, subtle changes in biochemical composition which are yet significant for strength property changes etc. All these changes might not be readily discernible on a microscopic wood slice. Soil, pollution, changing fungal, bacterial pathogens, types of insect predation, type of mixed forest environments affecting stages of early ( under the forest canopy) and late growths, climate etc. could be very important, yet not recognized factors leading to a different strength phenotypes.
It would be an interesting forestry science or engineering project for students to gather uniformly selected and dried specimens of shagbark and pignut hickory wood from a similar time frame and across the current ranges of the two species and test the mechanical properties of the sap-, heart- and transition wood at a given humidity and after repeated cycles of humidity change.
That would clarify a lot about the things we debate here, and would be more convincing for what to select today than century old studies or experiences from any craftsman, even if they are so vast as those of Bernie. They might even support Bernie’s experience. :)
 
Last edited:
FortyTwoBlades said:
As noted previously, there is a change in the moisture absorption rate between heartwood and sapwood so it makes me wonder if the chief problem would be experienced in cases where a dual-type handle was subjected to repeated STRONG shifts in humidity where the differential had opportunity to be more pronounced. Perhaps that would lead to separation of the fibers along the boundary over time, while also explaining why in many cases it's never an issue since the wood was sealed and/or subjected to only smaller/slower humidity shifts.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is what I tried to point out earlier. I am glad it didn’t sound outlandish to you.
 
littleknife said:
Morphology, even dendro-microscopic architecture of the wood might be the same or very similar, but there are other properties which might be relevant for strength, e.g. average thickness and spacial distribution of the cell wall material, subtle changes in biochemical composition which are yet significant for strength property changes etc. All these changes might not be readily discernible on a microscopic wood slice. Soil, pollution, changing fungal, bacterial pathogens, types of insect predation, type of mixed forest environments affecting stages of early ( under the forest canopy) and late growths, climate etc. could be very important, yet not recognized factors leading to a different strength phenotypes.
It would be an interesting forestry science or engineering project for students to gather uniformly selected and dried specimens of shagbark and pignut hickory wood from a similar time frame and across the current ranges of the two species and test the mechanical properties of the sap-, heart- and transition wood at a given humidity and after repeated cycles of humidity change.
That would clarify a lot about the things we debate here, and would be more convincing for what to select today than century old studies or experiences from any craftsman, even if they are so vast as those of Bernie. They might even support Bernie’s experience. :)
Click to expand...
I think what would probably be most relevant would be identifying where current hickory is being grown, under what environmental conditions, and how it's being graded, with samples tested against one another. This likely has MUCH more impact on wood quality than anything genetic. Hickory reaches harvestable size at about 60 years of age according to what I was reading (though standards may have changed--another thing to look into) which means that big shifts in the genes are not likely to have occurred.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I think what would probably be most relevant would be identifying where current hickory is being grown, under what environmental conditions, and how it's being graded, with samples tested against one another. This likely has MUCH more impact on wood quality than anything genetic. Hickory reaches harvestable size at about 60 years of age according to what I was reading (though standards may have changed--another thing to look into) which means that big shifts in the genes are not likely to have occurred.
Click to expand...
This sounds logical.
However, I would not dismiss easily the genetic changes. Industrial logging and changes in forest ecology due to human manipulation cis documented to lead to many genetic changes. The most likely change is that of variant distributions (gene allele frequency) in populations, with once abundant variants becoming rare and vice versa. Add to this the likely new mutations induced by human activity ( radioactive and chemical pollutions) and you might see significant effects. Most mutations are either harmful or mostly neutral, even though the ‘neutral’ effect is frequently defined only within the framework of known effects and known genetic interactions, as well as resulting in no KNOWN phenotypic change. Changing suitability for striking tool handle use is unlikely to be a tested outcome in hickory genetics.
But I completely agree with you that sloppy grading annd poor quality control in handle manufacturing are likely contributing to the negative experiences too.
 
Last edited:
So these study's go back years in an effort to sell hart wood handles to folks that used hickory handles day in and day out. Obviously they didn't buy into the study's or probably never even heard of them.
Fast forward to today and some recreational users find the study's on the internet and now they are the gospel. The generations that actually used hickory handles to make a living don't know what they are talking about.
 
garry3 said:
So these study's go back years in an effort to sell hart wood handles to folks that used hickory handles day in and day out. Obviously they didn't buy into the study's or probably never even heard of them.
Fast forward to today and some recreational users find the study's on the internet and now they are the gospel. The generations that actually used hickory handles to make a living don't know what they are talking about.
Click to expand...
I feel like that's an intellectually dishonest reading of the material presented thus far.
 
garry3 said:
So these study's go back years in an effort to sell hart wood handles to folks that used hickory handles day in and day out. Obviously they didn't buy into the study's or probably never even heard of them.
Fast forward to today and some recreational users find the study's on the internet and now they are the gospel. The generations that actually used hickory handles to make a living don't know what they are talking about.
Click to expand...
This is a gross misinterpretation of the debate.
The old study clearly stated that the sapwood was found to be superior in old growth hickory, but also said that in second growth hickory they could not find the sapwood being stronger than the heartwood - they are talking about second growth hickory in its original range used to source handle wood around 1910.
The study does not say the users don’t know what they are talking about, it says that second growth hickory heartwood should not be prejudiced against without knowing it is not the same as the then old timers’ old growth hickory heartwood.
Fast forward to today and many who quoted the study don’t think it’s the gospel, but think it may reflect our own experience and gives support to that experience.
Other than that, you got it all right, and as usual, you were open minded, did not look down on anybody and your own opinion wasn’t presented as it were the gospel itself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top