Flexible handles on tools

[Glenn]

I found this video of a fellow using a flexible axe handle.  It would appear that you could break the handle easily but the fellow cuts the tree with no problem using very flexible handle.

 

 

Is a limber or flexible hammer handle good or bad?  Should it have a flexible motion and if so, how much ?

[Charles R. Stevens]

I bet that would feel funky. I can see mechanically why it might be better. It makes the death grip less damaging to the body, and elivistes the tendancy to "force" the tool. Only the inertia of the tool is doing the work, not unlike the spring linkage on a power hammer.
If the handle is strong and flexible like a bow stave I think it would be safe enough and would reduce tenden irritating vibration. But I still think it would feel funky, and I'd be afraid of it smacking me between the eyes on the rebound!

[MLMartin]

I bet that would be a great handle material for top tools!  Nothing like a poor swing from a striker to rattle your arm. 

[jmccustomknives]

You know Goddards got a recipe for a smithing hammer that is sopposed to have some flex to hit.  He claims that it is easier on the arm and seems to move more metal.  I did it to one of my hammers and it does seem to absorb some of the vibration.  A lot of flex would be funky and in my mind, hard to control.

[HWooldridge]

My grandfather was a carpenter for most of his life and used a 13 oz claw hammer with a shaved handle. He could drive a 16 penny nail in two licks and never used a tapping blow to start it - the first full hit drove the nail about halfway and the second sent the head flush. Of course, he probably hit his thumb a few times and hammered many thousands of nails before I was born...

He would break one of those handles every few months but kept a supply of spares in the truck. Since it was his livelihood, I believe he felt the extra work to shave and replace those handles periodically was worth the effort.

[Frank Turley]

This is hearsay. I'm told that the Japanese sledge hammers have some flexion to the hafts, probably not as much as shown in the film. I don't have the Japanese name of the wood they use, but it translates as "cow killer wood."

 

Reference top tools getting miss-hit, an old smith told me that top tools don't get wedged for that reason. He said that the incorrect blow might cause the haft to split, and the wedge only enhances that split. It happened to me one time, so I learned my lesson.

 

I slenderize the hafts including the necks and handles of all my hand hammers. The slender neck causes a bit of 'whip' or flexion when forging [i think even on the back swing, but I don't have films to prove it]. I use either the horse rasp or belt sander and then I scrape  the entire length with a sharp piece of glass. ½ linseed oil and ½ turpentine rubbed in well finishes the job.

 

Sayings and Cornpone

"You can get used to anything; you can get used to hanging if you hang long enough."

      Bill Center (RIP) my old Okie friend

[bigfootnampa]

I agree with a bit of flex... but that handle is a NOODLE!  Major League Baseball players are mostly having their bats turned with whippy shafts now... but I think an American lumberjack would break that handle in ONE stroke!  A rodeo logger would also cut that tree in about three strokes... maybe less!  I think it interesting!  I won't be trading my hickory handles in any time soon!  

[Glenn]

One of the things I found interesting is that he only used down angle and level cuts into the wood. I have watched people cut wood and have cut enough wood myself to realize that a down angle cut followed by an up angle cut will throw out a respectable chip. If you only cut at one angle you just chew on the wood with few small chips, if any, being thrown.

 

If you are not making chips, your not cutting wood.

[VaughnT]

I'm not sure I'd like my axe handle all whippy like that, but I'll not judge a man poorly just because he has a whippy handle.

 

I have often used conveyor belt as a handle for tools where I wanted the hand away from the action, and it works fairly well (started out simply because I needed a handle on something and happened to have a scrap of the stuff sitting there).  It's a very stiff material, but has a lot of give in it if the striker strikes wrong.  I treat it much like round stock handles, twisting it around the top tool and then forming the handle.  Instead of putting a twist in the handle, though, I wrap it in several places with copper wire to join the two reins.  You can bolt or rivet the two sides together, too.  If the piece is too floppy for you, adding a bit of coat hanger wire down the middle will stiffen it up.

 

I've never tried this on a hatchet, though!  

[GNJC]

Hmm, interesting; In ZImbabwe I've seen larger axes than that with handles of about the same length and some flexibility but not as much as that, nowhere near. They were European style axe-heads with a socket for the handle rather than the usual African type where the axe-head fits into the end of the haft.

 

Hazel and willow wands were wrapped around set tools here (in the UK) in the past, these formed a very shock-absorbing handle, but not very long lasting. I have used both, just for the experience, and found them alright but not as comfortable or convenient to use as an ash handle fitted in the tool's socket. Of course they are not used for striking...

 

Thinking about the opposite to the thread title, I saw a smith near Dunstable who had welded steel tube handles to some of his set tools and a couple of his hammers, I didn't use them so can't say how they feel to use, but I don't much like the idea of that, the impact must be jarring. But he was an old fellow and still working, so iI guess it can't have been that bad.

 

Frank, I have asked my wife about that wood you mentioned, she hasn't heard of anything like it. Are you sure it's an accurate translation?

[Ten Hammers]

My stake hammer has a welded pipe handle on it.  Was a gift from a friend 30+ years ago.  It is not a nice hammer to use but it drives stakes and has been in the bucket for a long time.  I have shaved handles on a lot of hammers.  They are very nice.  3 years ago at Threshers, a woman pointed out that my 3# handle was cracked.  I noted this and planned to replace it.  It still is used today and I have pointed countless tripod legs and other forging with it ( since I forgot the thing was cracked ).  A forgiving handle ( shaved) makes for a heck of a nice hammer.  You can feel it but I have no idea if you can see it move ( will have to try and remember to ask Joe to watch sometime).  I use a 4 in hand rasp ( like Junior did) to shave mine.

[Francis Trez Cole]

That tree looks real soft would not want to try that on Oak. Kim Thomas uses handle out of steel cable on it top tools under his power hammer (flatterers). I like a fiber glass handle you can feel the flex when you get over a 5 pound hammer. 

[Frosty]

I can see how a whippy handle could be a plus, the spring stores energy and releases it near the end of the stroke so the head is moving faster.

 

What I noticed about our intrepid woodsman was how high he was striking the tree, above his head or near. Small wonder he was surprised at which way it fell and a good thing he was cutting a small tree.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[SmoothBore]

I understand the "concept" that the whip in the handle accelerates the head into the work, by storing, and then releasing energy.  ( Much like casting a fishing rod. )

 

But in practice, as a close observation of the video shows, ... it doesn't seem to be working all that well.

 

 

Of course, we don't know about the hardness of the tree, ... or the sharpness of the axe, ... but I'm going to need a lot more convincing, before I start recycling old tires into axe handles. :P

 

 

 

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[Frosty]

I agree SmoothBore but I don't think that woodsman was very good at using an axe. He was striking way too high, made goofy sloppy swings, kept missing the mark, just in general a poor axeman.

 

You're right on the money, we don't know if the axe was sharp but it sure didn't look it to me and that says about all that needs saying about this guy.

 

I think with practice a knowledgeable axeman could make whippy axe handles work pretty well. How well I can't say I just think it might. Like you say, same principle as a casting rod.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[LastRonin]

Abe Lincoln is reputed as having said something like "Give me five hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe."

 

The swings didn't look efficient at all and the cuts didn't make it seem as if the axe was as sharp as it might have been. But whether it would work better than a stiff handle... that probably goes along the same lines as all the questions on here about how to best do anything... It depends on the person doing the deed.

[anvil]

the first thing I noticed was how up the trunk he started his cut. I did not watch the whole vid.

[Crunch]

I like the idea.

 

Since E = MV² (energy = mass x velocity squared) if you double the velocity you get 4X (2²) as much energy, and if you triple the velocity, you get 9X (3²) as much energy where the rubber meets the road.

 

Not only does the whippy handle serve as a shock absorber (like a spring); it also accelerates the axe head at the end of the swing, resulting in more energy going into the work.

 

The only major downsides I see are that you lose some steering/control, especially in the case of glancing blows, which could be dangerous; and the fact that the handle is likely to fatigue and eventually fail a lot faster than a stouter, stiffer handle.

[SmoothBore]

I suspect the need to strike the tree in the "12:oclock" to "3 oclock" quadrant, ... rather than lower down, ... might have something to do with what I percieve as a lack of control of the axe.

 

From the "12 oclock" to "3 oclock" position, the axe is travaling AWAY from the "opperator" :rolleyes: ... and ill placed, or glancing blows are less likely to bite him in the leg.

 

 

I agree, that a bit of practice would improve anyone's effectiveness, with most any hand tool, ... but I'm not at all convinced that re-inventing that particular "wheel" would be of any use to me.

 

But as long as I can get fuel for my trusty STIHL, I very rarely have any use for an axe.

 

The only axe I own, was forged by my Great-Grandfather, some time around 1920, ... and it's in no danger of being worn out, by me.  :P

 

 

 

 

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[Eddie Mullins]

I have an axe with a synthetic handle, not sure of the exact material, but it provides some flex although not nearly to the degree of the flimsy handle in the video. I do not care for the flex in the handle myself.

[rockstar.esq]

Watching this I couldn't help but remember being a little kid with construction paper "springs" tied to my bare fee with yarn.  As I mounted the stairs of my slide I was very confident that they'd be useful in my crime fighting adventures.

 

Just because a spring "return's" a given amount of energy, doesn't mean any old spring's capable of the energy getting applied.

 

To that end, our ancestors weren't stupid.  Really dense hardwoods aren't as shock tolerant as something like Hickory.  I watched Roy Underhill discussing the differences between Euorpean axes and American axes.  The oak shafts used on some English axes required a lot larger shaft to accommodate the shock of the axe in use.  Hickory allowed for a more slender handle that held up very well.

 

I'd be interested to see some super high speed video of an axe swing.  It seems like there's more flex going on that we can perceive.

[ThorsHammer82]

what no one else pointed out was the lack of effort he was putting into his swings. My dad works in the timber industry and I've grown up around logging my entire life. I watched professional loggers use axes and I've used more than a fiew my self. that guy looked like he was swatting at flies not chopping down a tree. He wasn't even breaking a sweat. my observation is that his technique and his tools are a completely different mindset than say an american lumber jack. Here, we take a large axe head with good mass and put that on a stiff handle than we swing it as hard as we can at a tree to force the axe head as deep into the wood with each stroke as we can. I would argue that he put less effort, and far less energy burned into cutting down that tree than I would using a "proper" US style axe.

 

I agree his axe probably could have been much sharper. Also, not knowing where the video was taken, but understanding that most jungle trees tend to be hardwood (mahogany, ironwood, ect) vs soft like a fir/pine tree It's hard to say how hard the tree was to cut.

 

I think the best comparison for this would be a graphite handled golf club. The flex is closer and the entire set up is closer than the example of a fishing pole. The shaft is flexible to increase the force that the head imparts on the item it's striking.

[GNJC]

rockstar.esq (?) I've not heard of an oak shaft on an axe anywhere in Europe or here in the UK either, please let me know if you have any ref's for that. As far as I'm aware from the Bronze Age onwards, and maybe before, ash has always been the wood of choice for tool handles and impact resistance over here.

[rockstar.esq]

http://video.pbs.org/video/2172600552/

 

This is the woodwrights shop episode I was thinking of.  I can't watch it now to check if I've mis-remembered the European handle materials. If I did, I apologize.  

[GNJC]

Thanks for that, you mis-remembered (?); he mentions ash from the start. An interesting show, but the chap presenting it is a a bit too much of a ham for me.

 

He also chose as an example a European axe that is huge, I can't speak with authority for those on the continent but British axes were significantly smaller than that. Not as small as the later American axe, which we have more or less adopted, but much shorter than the one he shows.

 

An interesting point to remember is that ash is a lighter wood than hickory (hence its use, I believe, for baseball bats nowadays) so that although the American axe-head was lighter than an old English one, the English ash handle would have been lighter.

 

For myself, I like hickory, but ash grows all over my land so I use ash when I need a handle.

 

It's good to see old crafts and tools being shown on television in the US too, there has been ssomething of a revival over here and the publicity helps.