Favorite handle making and wedging method?

[Justin Topp]

So I just re made a handle from ash for my favorite hammer. A 2.1 lb straight peen hammer I forged. It was my second hammer. I used my draw knife to make it and finished with sand paper. I’ve also used rasps. My favorite method for wedging I’ve found is to use two wood wedges in a t shape. I like walnut. I don’t saw the wood for the wedge I just make a grove with a chisel and hammer the wedge in and it splits to fit the wedge. Had less issues like this than with pre cutting the wedge. I have metal wedges to use later if I need them but it’s nicely secured as is for now. The handle is a little wonky but it’s my first time using a draw knife and I didn’t have my rasp to clean it up. I like long slim handles that thin near the head best. What are your favorite methods for wedging hammer handles and making them?

[ThomasPowers]

What I like to do is to stand the hammer head down in a small tray of shallow boiled linseed oil for a week or more and let it wick up into the wood. When I can see it rising above the hammer head I know it's replaced the water in the wood cells and will be MUCH less prone to the swelling and shrinking of cycling humidity.  I usually do a bunch of hammers at a time to fill the small tray and not waste any BLO.

When they are "done"; I wipe down the steel heads with a rag to give them a light coating of BLO and the handle near the head as well and then burn the rag in the forge so no issues of it spontaneous combustion.

[Justin Topp]

That’s a good method. Never soaked them myself but I have a hammer I bought that was soaked months ago and is just as tight so I might try it 

[ThomasPowers]

When I lived in Ohio the winter/summer humidity swings used to "loosen" up handles fairly often. Then I moved to a place where the ambient humidity may be in the single digits for a lot of the time and had to reset every last one of my handled tools----and let new handles adjust for a year or so before putting them in tools.  Well I did them in batches and soaked them like I mentioned and have only had to re-do at most 5% in the last 16 years. (I had 100 handled tools when I moved out here; I haven't counted lately but I have a bunch more!)

[Justin Topp]

Hmm I’m interested if the handles last so long. It’s never very humid here so not much to worry about. How long on average are they soaked? Do you also soak stuff like handles top tools such has punches? 

[ThomasPowers]

Notice I said "handled tools" and not hammers?   If it has a snug fit wooden handle; it gets soaked. (Some tools have loose fit handles and they generally don't get soaked.)   

I like to soak them until I can see the linseed oil wicking up over the handle:steel/iron junction; but as I am generally doing this on weekends it's usually soaking from one till the next.

I also try to stock up on handles whenever I can get them cheap so they can acclimatize slowly before being needed.  I also grab broken sledge hammer handles when I find them tossed and make custom handles from the remains. 

[Justin Topp]

Oh oops sorry I read that and it flew over my head. I was thinking only hammers. Thanks 

[ThomasPowers]

I just picked up a couple of dozen old top tools; most look to have improvised wooden handles---broomstick, tree limb, etc.  All came from working smithies and some will get formal handles and some will remain loose handled.  Going to have to find a handle manufacturer near NW AR, USA and stock up on seconds again as rehandling all this stuff is going to deplete my seasoned handle store.

[Justin Topp]

Have you heard of thrane axe and saw co. They have a bunch of blanks for cheap. You have to make the handle but you can choose the wood and they are dried blanks. Unless you’d rather buy premade 

[ThomasPowers]

I would just generally go to a place a company that made them  dumped their "seconds" and pick them up for US$1 a piece.  Being able to look them over I could check that the grain was good and that the problem that made them a second was either cosmetic or was in part of the handle I would be removing to shape it to my liking.  Last time I visited, they had stopped carrying them.  I was planning a visit up to Cassville MO to House Handle next time I visit the kinfolk in NW AR, USA.  Nice handles, decent prices---they even have a category called "Blacksmith Shop Hammer Handles" in their catalog.

[Justin Topp]

Ah gotcha. I might look into finding a place that sells the handles 

[Justin Topp]

Took your advise on soaking the wood around the eye and I’m liking it so far. Thank you. I made a handle from hickory for my hammer eye punch while the a hammer billet was heating. Used it to punch the hole then I did an oil soak on the handle And the punch before but feels nice and solid now.  That draw knife I recently made sure is handy. 

[JHCC]

I have a large stock of ash handle blanks, set aside when we took down the tree in our front yard (a victim of the Emerald Ash Borer). Also just grabbed a few hickory handles from the industrial surplus place; they were $1.25 each, plus at least two of them come with wedges.

[Justin Topp]

I haven’t been able to find a surplus store selling handles. We have a large lot of ash trees for fire wood and I think I’m gonna cut one up for handle blanks. Start it now so they are nice and seasoned. 

[JHCC]

That's exactly what I did: picked some logs that were about 18" long with nice straight grain, split them into 2-3" square billets, and stacked them to dry.

The surplus place here has the most amazing collection of random stuff, from partly used boxes of earplugs to CNC waterjet systems to old OBI presses to random pieces of unidentifiable machine parts. I check the site regularly, and just happened to catch the handles before someone else grabbed them!

[ThomasPowers]

Handles are in the  "grab them when you find them cheap"  category.  Especially out here where commercial handles need to dry out to ambient humidities before installing them.

For special hammers I like to use the "root burl" curly handles or I have some osage orange I got as firewood and slabbed and stacked and dried a decade or so per inch of thickness.

[Justin Topp]

That must’ve been nice. I like buying store bought handles and modifying them. 
 

Osage is an ideal handle wood right? 

[CrazyGoatLady]

We call osage orange,  Bois' Darc here. It makes for a very tough handle and turns a beautiful color with a boiled linseed oil rub. It will stain your hands though

[ThomasPowers]

Bodark can be used as a fiber dye.  UV does affect the colour though.  I once got a hold of some very old  osage orange fence posts; probably 80 years or so that made lovely knife handles when oil finished---it looked like you could dive into the surface!

Most good bow woods make good tool handles as well.

[Justin Topp]

Huh very neat. Thanks 

[BillyBones]

On 1/23/2020 at 12:36 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Most good bow woods make good tool handles as well.

I have a friend who makes bows. One of his favorite woods to make a bow from is honeysuckle. He says that they will not deform and it is an incredibly strong and flexible wood. I have made a couple shillelaghs from honey suckle, one cracked the back of an oak chair i had in the barn with 1 swing. Anyway i have a couple staves i cut last year to season that split on one end i been thinking of trying as a hammer handle. 

Honeysuckle dry's pretty quick and splitting is a problem but usually a nice coat of lard takes care of that, usually. The old method of making a shillelagh was to cover with a thick coat of lard and put it in  the chimney for a year or so. 

[pnut]

That's the method I'm familiar with  but the wood used was blackthorn.   

I have a bow I made from Osage orange and a yew longbow my nephew brought back for me when he came back from Germany. 

Pnut

[lazyassforge]

Billy ones, I have got to ask. What does honeysuckle grow like in Ohio? Here in Oklahoma, all I know the honeysuckle I know about is a multi limbed bush/vine that has small stems. Could you mean honey locust? People around here use boisd’arc and honey locust for bows but as far as I know, not honeysuckle. 
just curious, Bill Davis

[Frosty]

Am I the only guy who buys: straight, clear, 5/4" x 4" hickory cabinet lumber and makes slab handles? A single 8' board has kept me in handles for maybe 10 years now though I admit I haven't made one in a while.

I saw the blanks out on the bandsaw, carve/whittle and file to fit the pol. It doesn't split easily so I saw a slit for the wedges, two wooden wedges and one steel wedge. Then I warm the handle in the shop toaster oven and wipe on Trewax till it stops soaking in, wipe it off and let it cool. 

I've never had a slab handle loosen up and never had a store bought one that didn't. I've never tried the BLO soak though.

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

Blackthorn is the traditional wood yes, but they were actually made of any kind of hard wood. The word shillelagh literally translates to stick.

The honeysuckle growing in the US has 8 or 10 different species. Here most grows as a large bush bordering on tree. Branches can be 3 or 4 inches thick. This is one of the pieces that did not split on me. Should do the job. The trick is to cut things much longer than needed. That Y will be taken out (there is actually 3, the other is on the back side) and a ball will be carved out of it. 

  

We do have that viney spindly stuff, we just call it a weed. 

No Frosty you re not. My last couple handles came from 2 x 2's of white oak spindle stock, they were out of hickory. I do have a question, 5/4" ? Do you mean 3/4" or 1 1/4"?