On 10/29/2016 at 5:21 PM, littleblacksmith said:

I was given some poplar today, and was told that "oh, thats a hard wood and will make excellent handles, and also takes a stain well." Now, I thought that Poplar was a soft wood? also, how good will it make a knife handle? is Poplar desirable for anything else?

                                                                                                                           Littleblacksmith 

NOT good for hammer handles. Carves nicely and stains well, but too dent-prone for a knife handle.

Poplar is a hardwood but it is not very hard or very strong.  It also has poor resistance to weathering!  I have used it for interior cabinetry.  It has a fairly fine grain, is pretty machinable, takes paint finishes well!

 

I have made handles, which are working well, from the following materials:

Walnut, Maple, Red Oak, Hickory.  The maple cam from a neighbor's yard.  We cut it up with my sawmill.  Really pretty handle.  

I bought some hammer heads on eBay and I have made some handles from material I have and I also recently ordered some nice hickory handles from House Handle co, in Missouri.  Their prices are very good and you can order handles without lacquer.  Shipping was very reasonable.   

I have a couple trees in my yard, which need some larger limbs trimmed.  I have Locust, Ash, Plum, Cherry and Apple.  I will cut and dry them until I need a handle.  I figure as long and the handle will stay securely in the head of the hammer then it will work well for a handle. I think the problem with a softer hard wood like poplar is the wood in the eye of the hammer will compress and loosen up after use.  

I might even figure out a way to place a handle inside the hood of my forge(without burning it) to cure the wood and get it bone dry before I haft it to the hammer.  Just a thought.  having good dry wood is important since you don't want it shrinking on you and the head then gets loose.  

Crabtree, (apple variant) was extolled for work where a whippy handle was needed it being flexible and strong.   Also for threshing tools as you may recall John Barleycorn and the crab tree stick...

The terms hardwood and softwoods are misnomers. Broadleaf trees are called hardwoods and conifers are called softwoods and in most cases they are.

However there are very soft broadleaves such as poplar and balsa and very hard softwoods such as yew and hemlock. I have used hemlock branches as handles with success.

 

I thought the interesting idea was that varieties that make good bows can make good handles----is anyone making bamboo handles?

from my experience with bamboo, i would think that it would split to easily to be of much good. how would you drive the wedge in to a hollow piece off wood, anyway?

You'd have to split and laminate bamboo for handles.  It would be VERY hard and extremely strong... might work pretty well!  These days you can buy it mostly processed into lumber.  Rockler offers 3/4" thick planks.  For most handles you'd need to laminate that to get 1 1/2" stock.  I don't know of anyone selling it in thicker timbers yet, but I'd be surprised if someone doesn't do that soon!

For smaller hammers or guys who like small handles bamboo could be just the ticket!  It is WAY stronger than oak or hickory!  I often buy bamboo baskets in second hand stores!  They look flimsy because they are usually split to very small withes... they are NOT flimsy!

I am familiar with how bamboo is split and laminated for making high end fly fishing rods and for making bows and was thinking of that and not just using a piece as cut.

I have a friend in Arkansas who used to grow a number of different varieties---they range greatly in what they are good for you know.  I think he got started because he wanted to make bamboo flutes.  I'll have to ask him if he has any suitable.  The flooring is generally made to be hard and would be a bit brittle I expect.

Here we are!  Lumboo offering 3"X3" all bamboo lumber!  It seems shockingly inexpensive!  

http://www.renewbamboo.com/index.php/component/djcatalog2/item/24-bamboo-lumber/100-2x4-dimensional-bamboo-lumber

I hope it's okay to put this link in here?  I have no contact or experience with the supplier.

Thanks; I may have to try to find a piece just for experimentation purposes---bet it would make a great anvil stump if laminated further...

I think it is kind of tricky to laminate Thomas.  I hear that they hot press it under high pressure industrially.  Partly what makes it so HARD no doubt... the compression of the fibers.

watch some of the videos of hand craftsmen making high end fly rods with no major industrial tools.

I made a handle from bamboo flooring once, it's held up fine so far but isn't the most beautiful wood and I ended up finding some small voids in the material. Some day I'd like to actually split and laminate some bamboo by hand.

There are 3 varieties of Hickory currently growing on my place, ... so I feel no need to "re-invent" that particular wheel. 

But there is also a small grove of Silver Maples, that I've successfully used for several long-handled tools, ... including an indestructible Peavey.

A wood that's often overlooked for tool handles, is the Osage Orange.

During the Great Depression, it was widely planted as windbreaks, throughout the Central United States, ... and is also known as Hedge Apple, Horse Apple, Bois d'Arc and Bow Wood.

I'm currently curing a rare "straight grained" piece, for use as a walking cane.

 

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forgot bodark in the AKA list...

Easy to grow too. Dig a shallow ditch, cut a fruit to the desired number of trees, toss in the ditch, bury, and then burn a safe zone around it every year to keep them from overgrowing the entire neighborhood. One about eight miles wide should almost do it.

Fair warning, as tough as the wood is, the root structure is lousy. Don't plant one close to a house you want to keep.

3 hours ago, SmoothBore said:

 

I'm currently curing a rare "straight grained" piece, for use as a walking cane.

 

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"Straight grained" hedge????  Better hide that somebody will want to use it for a corner post.  

Naw it's the bow makers that are salivating and whining reading that.  I got mine after a fellow cut up an osage orange tree into firewood sized chunks.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that the straight section of the trunk could have brought in a whole lot more as bow staves...

On 12/3/2016 at 6:14 AM, ThomasPowers said:

Naw it's the bow makers that are salivating and whining reading that.  I got mine after a fellow cut up an osage orange tree into firewood sized chunks.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that the straight section of the trunk could have brought in a whole lot more as bow staves...

How is it as stove wood? I'm a LOT more interested in good fire wood than bow staves, my compound works just fine.

Frosty The Lucky.

Burns hot, rather oily flame as I recall, makes hot long lasting coals