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I Forge Iron

Stock for making axes?


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Brent took a standard ash handle and cut it down and reshaped it. I could do as you suggest and plane it down and build it back up after shortening it, but I want to change the head profile a bit. What I wanted to make was something like his “Middle of Nowhere” pattern. I really like it because it has clean and almost elegant lines. I don’t like most other patterns. I couldn’t describe to him exactly what it is I don’t like about them except to say they look like “sporting women”. I believe that is a family friendly term for what I actually said. The lugs are big and exaggerated. I want to shave down the beard just a bit to make it easier to get my hand around. 
 

As for the handle, I want it about 2” shorter, thinner, and made of bois d’arc. 

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Merry Almost,

Look up a 'Shaving Horse'. I find these the best way to hold your stick, when you are doing the shaping. You can glue up some thinner pieces of ?? (whatever you have handy, that is a hardwood), lay out the pattern/shape that has caught your fancy and cut it out with a bandsaw. Fire up your 'Draw Knife' and before you know it, you are looking for the sandpaper and stain. Yes, you can use any Vice, but it so much easier with the 'Horse'. Don't be afraid of looking at old Pallet's, lots of good hardwood!! Generally not price prohibitive.

The best road of Life, is not the straight and narrow. Take a few side-roads, don't be shy. You might enjoy what you learn!!

Neil

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Fahrenheit.

The point of heat treating pallets isn't to change the moisture content, but to kill off any bacteria, insects, etc that might pose a risk either to the material carried on the pallet or to the environment into which the pallet is taken. (The unintentional introduction of non-native insects can have a devastating effect on local ecosystems; see Emerald Ash Borer.) Half an hour at 138°F -- basically the temperature of hot tap water -- isn't going to have a substantial effect on moisture content.

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Frazer's right; I must have grabbed that from a US based website.   I'm familiar with heat hardening wood for wooden spear points; but that is done around charring temps.  I wonder when the effects actually start? 

220 degF and we might start getting some expansion of boiling water concerns as well.

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Conventional wood-drying kilns operate between 80°C/176 °F for hardwoods and 115°C/239°F for softwoods. I don't think that steam expansion is a problem even at the top of that temperature range, as you're dealing with extremely small quantities of moisture dispersed throughout a very porous medium.

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