If you make your handles, how do you produce them? (drawknife, lathe, etc.)

If you buy your handles, whom do you buy them from, for how much, and how do you make sure the handles fit the heads?

Have a bunch of black locust that I had collected to make bows. Split a chunk out, Square it in the tablesaw take a draw knife to it til I'm happy. Touch up rough corners with a farriers rasp. goes pretty quick.

draw knife and sander .. and i buy handles wherever i can find um .. i have a hawk mandrel i use ...

belt sander with 36 grit is by far the best/quickest way . it makes lots of dust though.....

I make mine with a draw knife and rasp. Osage are the pretty ones for show but they snap like glass when you throw.

Osage orange is a very tough springy wood. It is excellent for all types of tool handles! Being that it is a traditional bow wood it is obviously NOT brittle!! If your handles are snapping it is clear that there is some other problem. Possibly your grain orientation is at fault or maybe you do not have real osage timber? I have never had an osage orange handle snap under any use conditions whatever! Maple and especially curly maple IS a rather brittle wood.

I use osage and have never broken a handel yet. I have tortured them in every way. I am not shoure why yours are breaking? I make mine out of limbs then draw knife or band saw and sand.

I rive out and then drawknife to shape. Lately I am doing some branch handles that use the whole diameter of the branch and are just debarked and shaped minimally with the drawknife. So far I am liking these too! I like to use forks and branch joints to add strength and size where needed. This can be a bit of extra work in selecting and shaving as the grain is a bit tricky there but worthwhile IMO.

I use Osage for my shop hammers, tough stuff more spring than hickory. I have not broken one yet. I agree that either you do not have osage or maybe are sawing across the grain rather and along with it.

Here's where I get mine;

http://www.dunlapwoodcrafts.com/TomahawkHandles.php

Their tear-drop handles closely match my drift.

I rive out and then drawknife to shape. Lately I am doing some branch handles that use the whole diameter of the branch and are just debarked and shaped minimally with the drawknife. So far I am liking these too! I like to use forks and branch joints to add strength and size where needed. This can be a bit of extra work in selecting and shaving as the grain is a bit tricky there but worthwhile IMO.

How do you prepare the wood if you are using branches? I am new to this but we have a tree where I am from called Ironwood. It is a very dense and hard wood.

I just pick out a likely looking branch and cut it and remove the smaller branches. Then drawknife the bark off and slightly refine the shape. I usually try to use downed wood that is partly dried already. If I end up using dead green stuff I'll cook the end that fits in the eye in a fire to get it fairly dry... otherwise it is likely to loosen too much as the wood dries and shrinks. If I can get a nice crotch at the end I like that as the cross grain there will tend to make a stronger knob to fit in the eye. Another crotch at the handle end is ideal if shaved down a bit and rounded for smooth handling. You can dry in a microwave too if you can fit the wood in there. Best to do this when you are home alone. Be real careful as the wood gets nearly dry in the micro as it will overheat or burn quite quickly. Short bursts that keep the wood too hot to handle comfortably but not hot enough to burn you work best.

I just pick out a likely looking branch and cut it and remove the smaller branches. Then drawknife the bark off and slightly refine the shape. I usually try to use downed wood that is partly dried already. If I end up using dead green stuff I'll cook the end that fits in the eye in a fire to get it fairly dry... otherwise it is likely to loosen too much as the wood dries and shrinks. If I can get a nice crotch at the end I like that as the cross grain there will tend to make a stronger knob to fit in the eye. Another crotch at the handle end is ideal if shaved down a bit and rounded for smooth handling. You can dry in a microwave too if you can fit the wood in there. Best to do this when you are home alone. Be real careful as the wood gets nearly dry in the micro as it will overheat or burn quite quickly. Short bursts that keep the wood too hot to handle comfortably but not hot enough to burn you work best.

Thank you

Guzzo, ironwood sounds like it'd be worth trying for handles. I'm going to scavenge some when I'm in the local mountains in a few weeks and give it a go for hammer handles. One thing, though. I don't know if your ironwood is the same as ours, but that stuff is heavy as heck. I don't know if that's going to be a good thing or a bad on a hammer - might balance things a bit better. Might make it so heavy I have no interest in lifting it hundreds of times. We'll see.

Typically every country has a species they call "iron wood" and typically almost NONE of them are related.

Even here in the USA the Desert Ironwood of the SW isn't anything like the Ironwood of the NE coast.

In general they tend to be hard and denser than water however brittleness tends to vary greatly.

Didn't even think about brittleness being an issue. I was worried more about the density of it making the hammer overall too heavy. Thanks.

We shall see, we shall see.

I've made most of my handles out of hickory. I used some Brazilian Ironwood decking into a handle by laminating a couple pieces together. I learned that Brazilian ironwood is best used as a "pick axe" type handle as any attempt to drive a wedge split the wood. It's far more brittle than springy.

Despite it being incredibly hard, it cuts very quickly with a surform rasp ACROSS the grain. I switch to a bench scraper that planes it smooth. Generally speaking I have very little sanding to do after that. All totaled, it's about an hour a handle.

Lately I've been re-forging cheapo ball peins into hawks. I salvage the handles and re-shape them to my liking.

I usually use a belt sander with a 36 grit belt. Then a spokeshave or rasp to fine tune it.

We do a bit of both but mostly buy blanks from Wayne at Dunlaps..Lisa sells to many hawks to make all the handles one at a time..She sells a lot of as forged hawks with straight grain handles..To keep the price down she orders all blanks for those..fast and easy to finish..heres a straight grain blank from Wayne..

draw knife, sander, and other knives nothing like Hickory, Osage and locust to make a handle .

Sam

KY,

Nice job on the hawk. Do you weld the eye on as a seperate piece or draw out, fold over and then weld?

Peter

Its a traditional wrap and weld..1075 between mild steel..

Drawknife, spokeshave, hand/palm plane. I re-purpose busted shovel & axe handles, bats and even firewood to make handles.
Mike