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Tell me about Osage orange for axe handles
- Thread starter DeadboxHero
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Square_peg
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It really helps that the gents around here are of a very fine variety; haven't seem any: "You kids get off my lawn!" attitude around here, ever. The disagreements are of a more technical nature...
You didn't know 300Six when he first came on board!
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I remember that storm well. There was a never ending amount of downed trees to cut up and remove. That, and pulling out stuck vehicles kept me occupied here. A couple three weeks if I remember.
You didn't know 300Six when he first came on board!
Hahahaha!
My axes had become a bit rusty by that time. Burning firewood in the fireplace nonstop to heat the house (this was January!) and not being able to get hired by emergency relief efforts (guess what, I did not have the gov't job prerequisite chainsaw operator's license), and not being able to carry on with my own carpentry business, I spent an entire week scavenging Bitternut Hickory, Sugar Maple, Red Oak (and some Black Cherry) logs (namely hi-graded from trees that fell across roads and trails) in the local parks. Chainsaw, snowshoes, family toboggan, and the Pulaski put in a yeoman effort to produce well over a full cord of exquisite firewood. I went so far as to send a 50 lb box of cut/split Hop Hornbeam to my buddy in the Arctic so that his kids could experience a real hardwood fire and coals for once.
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I have access to hard maple at a specialty wood store,any thoughts on hard maple? Is it prone to dramatically failing due to fine compacted grain? Also, what should I look for in the grain is it like hickory? Just get the grain parallel to the cutting bit with no run out or are there other details?
DbH, that vine maple you have is pretty tough also. It might work very well with straight hafts. It seems to have no small amount of resiliency to it. I would just try to make the center of the haft the center of the tree and you will come out following the grain pretty good.
I do suspect it will be better than hard Maple.
I do suspect it will be better than hard Maple.
Well, working so hard (while "blessing" in your mind the gov't for its bureaucracy!) I am sure would make anyone somewhat crankier for a while. I'd be in that place, I can guarantee it.
Guess your friend had everyday wood, and that special pile labeled "burn only on Sundays, other special occasions"
. Very nice of you.Square_peg
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I think forum member G-Pig has had good results with rock maple. I haven't used it myself but I've heard good things about it.
It would be challenging to find a piece of vine maple large or straight enough for a full length haft.
It would be challenging to find a piece of vine maple large or straight enough for a full length haft.
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I use sugar maple for all kinds of stuff. I find it stiff. Not a lot of "whip" or "flex" This is the piece I use to bang on handles and drifts. It is delaminating. Tough stuff though.
It always reminds me of butcher blocks and bowling alleys. It's hard alright.
Rock Maple (Acer saccharum) is referred to as Sugar Maple up here, in fact it's stylized on our national flag. Over the past 20 years an Ottawa company (I think they moved to Carleton Place, not far away, a few years ago) has made serious inroads into the traditional White Ash baseball bat market via using Sugar Maple. For sure it's a lot harder than ash and it's also not porous, and if it works for professional bats it ought to work pretty good for axe handles. The Wikipedia entry on it indicates it is even used to make archery bows.
It's way down my list of bow woods. Although it is exceptable. Vine maple is up near the top.
Or white oak, I recall these being sold years and years ago (in some old catalogue?). But hop hornbeam is what many Europeans with access to rate higher than ash, and as far as I know was used on your side of the pond, too. It is supposedly less pretentious as to grain orientation. Sugar Maple as well, seemed to have been popular a while back?
Another wood used by Europeans and that is pretty close to hickory in characteristics is black locust. The "popular wisdom" says that pieces harvested from the lower part of the trunk will be the best for an axe handle, but I cannot attest to that, or refute said claim. But then, again, most of these were hand-split and air dried, so I'm skeptical that what I could buy readily made today would be as good as what my grandpa used for years and years. Nor tell what part of the tree these were sawn from
Seems I made a confusion between hop hornbeam and the European hornbeam. We don't have the "hop" version
. Therefore, rectifying this mistake.I would prefer to defer to your experience than quotes from the Internet. We have goodies like Mountain Maple and Striped Maple (true Acer genus members) but I don't trust them for anything more than than being straight marshmallow sticks over the campfire. Small and soft and straight and easily peeled.
This is kind of interesting. Discussing some of the difference between maple and ash bats. Then they want to sell us a gauge to measure acceptable grain run out.
http://www.woodbat.org/