Thinking of making a hatchet handle.

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ekill

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Apr 22, 2016
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My grandfather's old hatchet is coming lose, so I need to put a new handle on it. I am thinking about making one. I haven't tried something exactly like this before, but I'm a decent woodworker. I am having a sort of difficult time figuring out what type of wood to use. I don't do woodworking that often so I don't want a huge amount left over. I was thinking of getting a hard maple or ash baseball bat billet and shaping it. Which would be better? Or is there a better way to go about this? Ideally, I'd like something somewhat decorative or exotic. I don't really want it to just be hickory or ash. That being said, I'd like it to be somewhat understated. Any suggestions for type of wood? I was thinking about something like zebrawood, marblewood, or osage orange, but I don't know which woods would do well as a handle. I only want the handle to be 12-16 inches long or so, maybe shorter.
 
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Osage orange is a good choice both for strength and looks. Elm is rather attractive and perfectly suitable for a hatchet handle. Mixed heartwood/sapwood hickory is beautiful.
 
With that short of a handle, do I need to worry about the wood being too hard? If I get a very hard wood, will it vibrate too much, or since it is that short would it not really matter?
 
ekill said:
With that short of a handle, do I need to worry about the wood being too hard? If I get a very hard wood, will it vibrate too much, or since it is that short would it not really matter?
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Whatever wood you use will beat the pants off using a metal handle. You don't mention where you live (with regard to local wood availability) but 'hard' maple will do you just great. Ash is softer and delaminates much more readily. See if you can find a piece of wood with some figure to it, and no knots.
 
I live in Richmond, VA. I have been looking around, and there's a woodworking store near me where I can get turning wood of almost any kind in 2x2x12, 3x3x12, 2x2x18, or 3x3x18. I think that might be my best bet for wood. Would these sizes be big enough? Or should I look for something else? I don't have real sophisticated equipment, so I'd like to have to cut as little as possible and mainly just shape the wood. That's the main reason I wanted something small like that.
 
The store near me has a lot off 2x2s and 3x3s of everything from ash and maple to lignum vitae and padauk in the $10-$20 range.
 
Curve (top of the shoulder to belly of the hang) and thickness of the butt are what determine wood size for handles. Eye dimensions are always frugal. Problem with standard dressed wood sizes is 1" (nominal) is not enough and 2" (nominal) is overkill. If you can find rough cut (ie not planed or smoothed) one inch or 5/4 thick in a 2 1/2 to 3 inch width you'll be all set. Use a jig saw/band saw/coping saw to cut out the profile and various rasps for shaping and fitting.
Nice thing about foot and a half long or under hatchet handles is you can raid many of your neighbour's or your own wood stove/firewood pile in looking for something nice. A stave that is fashioned into a handle is about as good as it gets structurally.
 
I've had trouble finding hickory, so I was wondering what other woods would work well.
 
ekill said:
I've had trouble finding hickory, so I was wondering what other woods would work well.
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Oh OK!
What I did for my Vaughan sub zero hatchet was buy the fastest full sized hatchet handle I could find and carved it as if it was just a piece of wood.
There's a lot of material in a pick handle.
But for a hatchet handle it's not too much of an issue , just like everyone says.
 
Use whatever you like, as others have said. What tools do you have?
I've made handles from ash, hickory, various maples (a hatchet handle is a great way to use a nice piece of curly hard maple), osage, ipe, hop hornbeam/musclewood, black locust, white oak, cherry (ugly though with an oil finish). Osage is my favorite.
 
As for tools, I have a jigsaw, a knife, a sander, and other stuff like that. The only power tools I have are a jigsaw, a drill, and a sander.
 
ekill said:
As for tools, I have a jigsaw, a knife, a sander, and other stuff like that. The only power tools I have are a jigsaw, a drill, and a sander.
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A combination half round plus flat side wood rasp allows you to take your time shaping once the roughing out of the profile has been done. Belt sander can do the same for you but they're often much too quick and result in making of an irreversible mess. On the roughed piece make sure to mark the axis of symmetry with a continuous pencil or felt pen line and don't sand this off until the job is mostly complete.
 
The sander I have is an orbital sander, but I'll probably do most of the detailed shaping with the knife.
 
ekill said:
The sander I have is an orbital sander, but I'll probably do most of the detailed shaping with the knife.
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Rustic way of doing things, especially if you're out in the bush with little else on hand (a sharp axe head will do the same for you), but otherwise not the most convenient or accurate way to do this at home.
 
I might look into buying a draw knife and/or a rasp. I'd like to do as much by hand as possible, so I might rough cut it with a jigsaw, but most everything else will be done with hand tools. What hand tools are most effective for something like this?
 
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