replacement 28" DB ax handle

B

billtindall

Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Messages
7
I need a replacement handles for a 27-28" double bit ax. It needs to be a slender one like what used to be commonly available on high quality DB axes. I need "ballet shoes", not "work boots" for this ax. If you use or collect these axes you will know exactly what I am talking about. I use this kind of ax regularly for trail maintenance and limbing felled trees. The last one I found was years ago at a logger supply in British Ontario and have not seen one since. Plenty of large DB handles at the flea markets but nothing for the smaller DB "limbing" axes.
 
You are going to have to invest in a spokeshave, draw knife, rasp and files or even rent time on a cabinet shop spindle sander before you buy whatever crude club you think is suitable grain-wise. Ballet shoe-type hafts are a thing of the past. Today for instance if it says "Link" on the handle the wood can be great but there will be twice as much of it as you had in mind. Shaving it down is much easier than trying to make your own, although in the case of a Dbl bit all this is readily do-able.
Good luck! Today's generation have no experience with 'live' hafts and would probably freak out if given a chance to experience one. Likely why rigid fiberglass, plastics and full metal tangs have become so popular and why replacement wood handles increasingly look more like rounded-over 2x3s than anything else.
 
A couple years ago, I contacted the guys at "The Axe Hole" (dot com) about handles, and one of the guys (a retired fellow, formerly a competitive axeman) had a bunch of new-old-stock handles he had bought in bulk years ago, when some distributor was closing. He is selling the handles at a price that reflects their long-lost quality, but still less that the going price for Gransfors replacement handles, for example.

I recall that he mentioned he had NOS handles for 28" DB (cruiser) axes, Puget Sound felling axes (40+ inches), among others.

Here's a photo that's currently on their website page that shows axe handles and other logging stuff that they have:

the_axe_hole_december_2013006013.jpg
 
5/8 x 2 1/4" eye. Its handle is 3 1/4" circumference at smallest part 6" below bottom of head. No idea the brand ax. My father who was a forest ranger in Long Lake NY bought it in about 1954 at the Long Lake hardware store. I remember sharpening it at the ranger station before we took it afield. I now use it for trail maintenance and limbing trees I cut for firewood. It is delightfully balanced. Total weight handle plus head is 3 1/3 pounds. I fear some day I might break the handle (by foolishly letting my son in saw use it) and I would like a spare on hand.
 
nothing to fear in breaking a handle. a good one can be found, but i think you are in the correct frame of mind of finding one well before you NEED it.

i found a beautiful NOS OP link cruiser handle six or eight months ago, and it is perfect, very slim, perfect swell, etc... i guarantee it is exactly what you speak of. a proper ax handle is very hard to come by these day, especially in cruiser size.

i would not suggest the new Seymour Link handles, or the house handles, unless you are willing to spend a few hours thinning and shaping it to your needs.

the best idea i think is watch the auction site for a NOS cruiser handle. other internet sites may produce something also, but you must watch and wait until the right one comes along.
 
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