Tool Handles. Yeah, I know, hickory is king, but...?

[Leland Stone]

Howdy!

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but out here in mine, replacement hammer handles are becoming pricey and tough to find. Home Depot and Lowes carry next to nothing, and even traditional lumber yards don't stock many sizes. I get great deals on some good hammers at the local swap meets, but handles are $7 and up, IF I can get the size I need!

Here's the deal: I can get 8/4 ash (about 1-1/2" thick or so) pretty reasonably priced, and I've got tooling for whittling my own handles. I know that ash splits quite well, but I wonder if despite this characteristic whether it makes a good handle. Y'all care to weigh in?

Thankies! :D

[Dogsoldat]

any wood thats local that makes a good bow will typically make good hammer handles. theres no reason that ash won't work well for you. I've been making my handles out of black locust that I had collected for my other hobby. I just cut down a 6-8" dia tree and split into billets. Carve out a handle shaped object with drawknife and rasp.

[Maillemaker]

Ash is used to make baseball bats, and was a favorite for medieval polearms, lances, and staves. I don't see why it wouldn't work for you.

[Pug}{maN]

just show us some pics after you get them done...

[bigfootnampa]

Ash is a very good handle wood! I use whatever I have laying around here, mostly, but I avoid maples and cedars. Today I gathered some apple, chestnut and pecan for handles. Pecan is very good and apple should be okay... the chestnut seems a bit light and soft but I will try it. I get mulberry, locust, hackberry, elm, osage orange, persimmon and oaks here also. Ash is a lighter wood but still strong. I have an ash handle on my favorite forging hammer... it has served well for several years.

[HWooldridge]

I use ash and osage orange. Both work well but osage often makes a prettier handle with regard to figure.

[Dave Budd]

in the UK until folk started to import hickory from the colonies, Ash was the king of handle woods. Most of my new hammers have hickory or ash depending whether they are European or Chinese manufacture, my old hammers (and axes, top tools, etc) are all ash as far as I can tell. The romans preferred holly due to its springyness aparently. Most of the handles I make myself are from ash, but that largely because I have lots of ash near me (my workshop is in 10 acres of woodland), but I've got some made from all sorts of rubbish including hazel and pine!

[GNJC]

Interesting to read Dave's mention of the Roman use of holly, I have always found it an awful wood to work with other than in small wands <1" across. It has a sort of spiral shake (crack) to it if allowed to season in the round. When I've planked it, it needs any amount of weight on top to keep it straight, even then the slightest damp and it twists. I do know that it was traditionally used here (UK) for whip shafts - carriage and wagon whips, not hunting.

I use ash for all my handles, in the round for set tools and in wrought section for hammers, no problems at all.

Hickory is always raved about, but I can't say I've felt any benefit from it over ash when I've used hickory handled hammers. I think it is like French food, a successful marketing campaign put the idea in peoples' heads that it is great, and that thought has stuck even though in reality it is nothing special.

[bigfootnampa]

Well I'd never put ash down but hickory IS something special! It is very, VERY STRONG and can be used in thinner sections than other handle woods. Especially for such uses as axe handles which are limited in size and yet need to take a real beating... hickory is an extremely good choice! Pecan is a favorite of mine as it is in the hickory family but just a bit springier and prettier too! I also love osage orange when I can get it! it is VERY springy and tough and can be pretty too. The lumber industry apparently cannot tell the difference between pecan and hickory and so markets the lumber as "pecan hickory" in most cases... but for handles they always call it hickory! Holly is so very hard that I would not think of it as a premium handle wood... back in the Roman days they probably used it green though and that makes a difference. Locally here we have the hackberry which is in the elm family and roughly the density of oak but much more flexible. It makes excellent handles and is a good wood for chairs and other furniture also. I am typing this at a trestle table that I made of Hackberry cut and sawn locally. I have been using the natural branch forms of wood for most of my tool handling lately. Once you get past the myth that you cannot use the pith without excessive cracking the branch woods offer LOTS of interesting shapes and extreme efficiency due to the myriad of natural preforms available that require only minor work at the shaving horse be ready to use! When I mount tanged tools in small branch sections I will wrap with twine for a reinforcing ferrule and this way I can use pretty petite branches for things like my hooks that benefit from lighter, longer handles. I have only been doing this a short while but so far the results seem quite successful. I like leaving a branch stub at the grip end of the handle for a hand stop and a handy way to hang the tools. I also look for crotch areas to serve as the tool socket ends as the mixed grain there is more split resistant and holds the tangs better. Lastly I want to add that crooked handles can be MUCH more interesting than straight ones and have some advantages in use too. For instance; I make these little handy hooks that are useful for reach extenders and a bit of crook or a branch stub at the grip end gives much more positive control of the hook orientation than a straight handle will and also makes for a more secure grip. The author of "The Scythe Book" has been making scythe handles from alder using the natural curves of the alder growth patterns to provide the desired curvature for the snath.

[Jim Poulmas]

I know people that use ash. I use ash or hickory. When I was in Germany almost all of the set tools, fullering tools, etc. seemed to have random tree branches wedged in. I've heard that a lot of Czech metalworkers use old hockey sticks for set tool handles. For the tools it shouldn't matter too much. For hammers I'd say go for precision.

[HWooldridge]

Trouble with hackberry is that the bugs like it. Any piece not sealed properly during drying or left near the ground will be shot full of holes in short order (at least that tends to happen here). Ash can also get "buggy" in the right environment but doesn't seem quite as bad as hackberry.

Mesquite is not bad if you can get a nice, straight grained piece but any cross grain will break out in use. I have several cords laying around so sometimes I split handles out of the firewood stack and put them up in the barn to season.

[rockstar.esq]

I've found the cheapest source for hickory is replacement handles for shovels. I can typically get about five hammer handles out of a single shovel handle. Roy Underhill has an episode of the Woodwrights shop where he extols the virtue of Hickory in particular young hickory. Apparently the design differences between European and American axes were greatly influenced by the enhanced spring of Hickory compared to Ash.

[Leland Stone]

All right, then, thankies for the info! After considering, I've purchased a large plank of ash at my local specialty lumberyard -- if it turns out the handles are no good, I've another project in mind for the ash. (I've been threatening to build an Irish drum -- I think it's called a bhodran? -- for years now, and ash will bend superbly for the purpose.)

Anyway, the ash was a most reasonable 2.99/board foot for 8/4 stock, which is actually a shade more than 1-3/4" thick. I will indeed post pictures when they are available. :)

[Charles McDonald]

I never buy premade handles, but rather I buy the wood at a local hardwood store ( I can get about 10 handles for 10 bucks). I rip my handles on a table saw and hand finish them with a rasp and sandpaper . Pretty much all of my hammer handles are Ash and its done pretty well for me, save for one handle splitting out, but that was my own fault. I do prefer Hickory though, its just not as easy to find around here.

[Francis Trez Cole]

we use to make dog sleds and snow shoes out of ash. Down here the best is oak. I ran into the same problem and started using fiberglass handles.

[ThomasPowers]

Note that most specialty lumber is kiln dried which doesn't make as quite as tough a handle as air dried wood.

[forgemaster]

The best handles in Oz were/are made of spotted gum. Now I know that there are a lot of places in the world that have imported our eucalypts and some of them are now classed as noxious weeds by some countries. Is it possible to source some spotted gum, we have had no problems with it, straight grained, smooth, free from most defects, hard as blazes, we reckon its' equal to hickory.

Phil

[Old N Rusty]

Then, there is welding a pipe to the hammerhead.

[Willis]

I've used osage orange, pecan and oak. I much prefer the osage orange because it's so dense and I like the color + whatever shavings/dust I have leftover from making the handle, I collect and my wife uses as a natural dye for yellow.

[dimenickel]

what ever the beams of wood pallet skids are made of... some maple , some oak .. its free and usually a hard wood.. ... use this to replace out hickory which has either split apart or cracked beyond repair... typical

[Robert Yates]

Osage orange, Oak, Locust ,and Cherry

Sam

[Bentiron1946]

I think, if I disremeber my botany, that ash and hickory are kind of in the same general family of trees. I have made hammer handles out of some of the trimming of mulberry, Chinaberry, carob, black locust, well I have tried just about anything that folk cut off their trees and lay by the curb for trash pick up. One thing that has been mentioned already is pallets and there is pecan and hickory in there along with oak and those three work well too.

[wd&mlteach]

Shock resistant woods for hammer/axe handles Ash, Elm, Hickory, Locust, & Oak -but Oak is my last choice. Locust if it is dry as it is prone to checking, whatever the species make sure the pith is out. Of course if you are near PA get the Ash while you can it as it is under attack by an invasive species.

For lathe chisels and the like I use whatever I have in 8/4, most of the time Maple and banded/pinned with Aluminum pipe sections. But I would not use Maple for hammer handles as it is dangerous when it breaks. I have seen some baseball games where Maple bats broke and the pieces looked like spears.

I have also heard fruit woods make nice handles for tools, not hammer, but other tools.

[PaulKrzysz]

There are three main handle woods which where used depending on your geography. In America hickory was used, in Canada where hickory was not available or ash, Sugar maple was used, and Europe Ash. These are the main woods but of course there were others as the people above will tell you.
The cheapest way to get handles is to pick wood which others have cut down. Here people usually leave it on the curb so others can take it as firewood. All you need to do is split it, season it and shape it when you need it. all you need to shape is a hatchet, rasp, file and if you want it to look pretty some sandpaper will help.

[Randy]

Ash and hickory are great woods for hammer handles as well as many of the other woods mentioned. I stay away from store bought as they often cut them out of a board and therefore cut across the grain leaving a break point. It's best to split your handles out of a chunk of wood and then draw knife and /or spoke shave it to size. Takes a little time but lasts a lot longer than most store bought handles. I'm still using a split handle that was made in 1998.