Possible new way of fitting hammer handles

[Farmweld]

I was in discussion with another local smith and I mentioned that no matter how tight I fit and wedge my hammer handles they always seem to work loose over time.  He came up with the brilliant suggestion of fitting them with some inner tube rubber between the handle and head so I tried it yesterday. Filed the handle so it was a firm but still a slip fit, cut a circle of inner tube from a 4WD tyre, bit of dishwashing liquid as a lubricant, put it over the hole and tapped the handle through (it came up tight three quarters through so I then had to belt it a bit harder).  Trimmed of the excess around the bottom and cut a slit in the top and viola! a really solid fitting handle.  I'll let you know how well it holds once I have done some more work with it but it seems that after a couple of short forging sessions it hasn't moved a bit.

 

Andrew

[Crazy Ivan]

I used to ride BMX (Almost professionally until I broke my elbow) and the way we attach our grips is to hit them with WD40 to put them on, then leave them alone for 8 hours. after that, the WD40 had melted a bit of the rubber and bonded them to the bars so tightly that to get them off, you needed to  cut them off with a knife. The rubber would chemically bond to the metal handlebars and NOT let go. We would really put a beating on our bikes and one thing we never worried about was about grips coming off...food for thought.

-Crazy Ivan

[Charles R. Stevens]

Tommas Powers suggested soaking the handle in linseed oil, or linseed oil and solvent. This limits the srinkage of the wood handle.
I rub mine in equal parts bees wax, linseed oil and turpentine. This makes a tacky wax paste. I heet the handle and rub it on.
Treating the handles certainly seem to help.

[HWooldridge]

Household "GOOP" found at hardware stores works exceedingly well to bond wood handles to metal heads if a conventional wooden wedge is used at time of installation.  You slather the GOOP on both handle where it mates to the head and on the wedge (which then stays glued in place).

 

I have a 3lb head on a hickory handle that has been in regular use for well over 15 years and not loosened.

[Rich Hale]

For top tools..wood handled and struck with a hammer. The inner tube works great. I also tried it on hammers..not so good. I fit and wedge hammers now. Linseed oil is great for keeping handles longer. A dip in water now and then will ruin handles fairly fast.

[ThomasPowers]

Usually it's the wet/dry cycle that loosens up handles; especially when folks snug up handles during the dry times and then when the wet times come along they get crush dammage making it even worse next dry time.

 

So I try to prevent the wet/dry cycle by stabilizing the wood with linseed oil in the head area.  I do this by taking a baking tray with low walls and pouring about 3/8" of linseed oil in it and stand up as many hammer heads as I can letting the linseed oil wick up into them for several days.  Then take them out and wipe them down (taking the proper precautions disposing of oily rags!!!!!)  The linseed oil is also a good rust preventive treatment for the steel heads too!

[Glenn]

Boiled linseed oil, or raw linseed oil ??

Does it make a difference.??

[ThomasPowers]

I use boiled as that's what I have to hand---pick it up at the fleamarket often enough to never buy it retail.

 

However regular should work esp if you cut it with a bit of solvent to make it get drawn up into the wood faster.  As it's the replacement of water with oil I don't think the polymerization speed makes that much of a difference.  But I haven't run the experiment...  I like to leave the hammers soaking till I see linseed oil wicking up over the heads and then wipe down the heads and then the handles with the oily rags---then leave the rags in the forge where if they auto ignite it can't hurt anything.

[pjh66]

I was in discussion with another local smith and I mentioned that no matter how tight I fit and wedge my hammer handles they always seem to work loose over time.  He came up with the brilliant suggestion of fitting them with some inner tube rubber between the handle and head so I tried it yesterday. Filed the handle so it was a firm but still a slip fit, cut a circle of inner tube from a 4WD tyre, bit of dishwashing liquid as a lubricant, put it over the hole and tapped the handle through (it came up tight three quarters through so I then had to belt it a bit harder).  Trimmed of the excess around the bottom and cut a slit in the top and viola! a really solid fitting handle.  I'll let you know how well it holds once I have done some more work with it but it seems that after a couple of short forging sessions it hasn't moved a bit.

 

Andrew

I have seen a old blacksmith that does this to all his hammers He said they last for ages like this. I haven't tried it yet myself but have used his. I have heard of using "sifaflex" to fit hammer handles as well. I think the rubber helps fill any gaps and take up any shrinkage and expansion that happens with the timber.

[Francis Trez Cole]

my great uncle use to leave his axe in the stream by the house so when he got up in the morning to go cut wood it was ready. In Florida I had a similar problem with wood handles loosing up. the thing that helped a lot was when I set the wood wedge in the handle I glue it in with wood glue after its dry then I put in the metal wedges. But I switched to fiberglass handles for most of my hammers.

[nankbrown1227]

I have a couple of hammers that have been fitted with a rubber sleeve by the previous owner and the heads are still on tight after a good bit of use so I would say that this is a good way. My grandfather when putting on new handles instead of using traditional shaped metal wedges would use a wooden wedge then sharpen the end of 1/2" or 3/8" pipe and use the pipe as the final wedge, he said it would shove the wood out to the head more uniformly. But in a pinch I have used nails as wedges just to finish a job!