Size Is Everything

[GustavDebels949]

Well the other day I was at a good friends farm, and was picking through a pile of rough cut lumber (he has an old circular saw sawmill). I found a couple of 8' boards of something fairly hard and straight grained, out of curiosity I asked him what the boards where, to which he replied, "oh, they are just hickory, not good for much as far as I'm concerned." I came home with four nice hickory boards, about 7/8" thick by 6'' wide. I smoothed both faces with a handheld belt sander, and plan to rip half of the lumber into tool handles.

 

So the million dollar question is, what size hammer handle do you find works best?

 

Through trial and error, I've found that 7/8'' by 5/8'', rounded over a 1/4'' radius with a router feels best for me. Are there any general rules of thumb or things I should know before I dive into making mountains of hammer handles?

[toolish]

was reading something on the net suggesting that you want to make a fist around the handle and there to be around 1-2 cm gap between your finger tips and your palm.

As everyone has different sized hands i am feeling handles should be different as well depending on your hand size.

Just my thoughts though, so i wouldn't put a whole lot of weight behind it lol

[metalmangeler]

I make differnt sizes. My set tools have fairly light handles,If a striker miss hits or power hammer having a little give can only help. A larger hammer with a light handle especially in the eye the wood in the eye will sometimes brake enlarge the eye and the problem goes away now I just try to make sure my eyes are large enough that I do not have the problem. I also try to align the grain so that if the handle is looking like this O the grain is not like this =. Some times I discard quite a bit of wood to get the grain the way I want it. (I end up with a bunch of paint stiring sticks.)

[Alan Evans]

I would explore cleaving out the handles following the grain rather than rip sawing them out. The greener the wood the easier but even with seasoned and planked timber you can rip saw oversize following the grain and then split off the excess with a drawknife or froe or similar, the handles will be much stronger.

 

Alan

[Toadstone]

Here's a topic in the Blueprints section that you may find helpful. Hofi's tips for making handles:

 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/23378-bp1012-making-hammer-handles/?hl=%2Bhofi+%2Bhandles