Favorite handle making and wedging method?

[lazyassforge]

Thanks BillyBones! It probably has a lot to do with the dry sand around this part of Oklahoma! The “trees” that grow around here are just scrub brush in other parts of the country! 

[Justin Topp]

i would make my own but I’m not a fan of slab handles to honest. I’m probably gonna order a bunch of ash blanks from thrane axe and saw they are cheap and good quality from what I’ve seen 

[pnut]

The spindly viney plant that people usually think of when referring to honeysuckle is an invasive species in Kentucky. I don't recall where it came from originally but it's not native to KY. even though it is everywhere. 

Pnut

[Jasent]

I save broken shovel handles from work and make handles from those. I use a good wood rasp and sand with angle grinder and flap disk to finish.  Works great for me

[pnut]

I use shovel handles too. I didn't have any dried wood and couldn't find an actual hammer handle for sale at any stores around me so I bought a shovel handle so I could replace a synthetic handle on the first ball pien I had. It worked so well It's the go to material at least until the staves I cut dry for about another year. 

Pnut

[Justin Topp]

I like to sometimes buy old sledge hammers at auctions and use the handles from them if they are damaged at all. Chop the damaged part off and use a draw knife to size the wood 

[ThomasPowers]

When buying wood from a major hardwood dealer by the board foot it's typically listed by quarters, so a "5 quarter board" will allow you to plane it down and get a 1" thick SFS board.  (For a while in college I worked at a custom woodworking place that used to buy roughsawn Oak and Walnut by the semi load and then run it through 100 year old machinery to get S4S.)

[Benona blacksmith]

When our furnace xxxxxxxxx a month or so ago I took to the woods and cut down any standing dead timbers I came accross without looking into what they were. We needed heat so I supplied it. Now I have my furnace running again and dont need to fire wood. I started turning what I cut into charcoal and my dad showed up yesterday and informed me that what I was burning is Ash! now up picking through as i split and keeping all the good handle materials. There is still quite a few trees on my property that are still standing. Those will be used for axe handles.

Now I need to make me a draw shave!!! I gues I know what I will be using this Ash charcoal I'm making for!!! 

[JHCC]

37 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

SFS

That stands for "Surfaced [on] Four Sides" (sometimes abbreviated "S4S"), for all you non-woodworkers out there. "STS"/"S2S" is sometimes available and is the same thing without trimmed edges.

[ThomasPowers]

BB; My father used to call that  the "vertical storage of firewood".  It was locust at that house; the progression from fields to forest had started shading out the locusts; but they will stay dead and vertical for a long time. I would get to cut it with a bow saw and pack it up the hill on my scout pack frame.

Our furnace is due to have problems; but it's supposed to be another 5 billion years or so.

[Benona blacksmith]

Thank you for that JHCC I wasnt sure and was just about to start a search!

[JHCC]

11 minutes ago, Benona blacksmith said:

When our furnace xxxxxxxxx a month or so ago I took to the woods and cut down any standing dead timbers I came accross without looking into what they were.

With all the destruction of ash trees by the cursed Emerald Ash Borer, you're going to be finding a lot of that. My supply of handle stock came from a big EAB-killed ash tree that died in our front yard.

 

 

[Benona blacksmith]

I have access to a bunch of black locust also. That stuff is super hard but be sure to wear a respirator when sanding it. The dust is fine and if I recall somewhat toxic?

2 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Our furnace is due to have problems; but it's supposed to be another 5 billion years or so.

What kind of furnace do you have? Nuclear?

[Virusds]

for handles i really like to use russan olive. it is invasive here and is basicly everywere so theres no trouble finding it. it is harder that walnut when dryed and has a beutiful dark color especaly when it is oiled. i use a rasp and sander for my handles. i also have made one stacked leather handle and it turned out OK.

[JHCC]

10 minutes ago, Benona blacksmith said:

What kind of furnace do you have? Nuclear?

Hint: look at where he lives.

[ThomasPowers]

Thermonuclear.   New Mexico is sort of the poster child for Solar power. 

A builder built the house for himself back in the 1970's and did it solar---2x6 walls with insulation, the main room has a 1/2 cathedral ceiling facing the correct angle with an overhang and a stabilized adobe wall as a heat sink between the living room and the kitchen/dining room.   He sold the house in the 90's and the new owners hired him to double the size. (It's about 2300 sq feet.)

Unfortunately the addition is not "solar"; but we run it that way anyway.  Backup heat is baseboard electric---which we have only had on 1 time to show the mortgage company we did have heating installed.  Cloudy weather backup is a nice wood stove that sits by the adobe wall.  We go through a cord of soft wood every 3+ years or so.   My wife generally buys it at the end of the season or after and gets an enhanced load as a clean-up the lot/need money coming in deal.   We actually burn more than we need to as we like fires and the woodstove has a nice ceramic window so we can watch the flames.

So last week we had 3 days we never lit a fire and could have probably stretched that to a couple more with no hardship.  Yesterday was cloudy, windy and cold and my wife ran a slow fire all day and then I built a bigger one at night as the temps plummet.  Refuled one time in the middle of the night and it the house was nice and warm when I got up. Sun is out today so no fire.

[pnut]

l

40 minutes ago, JHCC said:

With all the destruction of ash trees by the cursed Emerald Ash Borer

It devastated the population. As did the Eastern chestnut blight. I found a young chestnut tree just starting to show signs of blight and plastered the canker with mud from around the base of the tree and wrapping it up. I'll see if it helped this spring.

Pnut

[Justin Topp]

Russian olive works for handles? Good to know it’s all over here and I collected a ton of it. Beautiful stuff too. Thanks. 
 

I have a bunch of ash I might use. It hasn’t been killed yet though 

[ThomasPowers]

I think he was speaking about knife handles and not tool handles wrt Russian Olive.

[Justin Topp]

That would make more sense. It has rather poor grain for hammer handles it seems. Rather course 

[JHCC]

Coarse grain isn't a problem with hammer handles if it's not too coarse. Ash has a pretty coarse grain and is considered fine. Oak, on the other hand, can be a little too coarse (and also tends to be a little bit brittle).

[ThomasPowers]

Very much depends on the species and how brash it is.  Some species are stronger coarse grained than fine grained; others the opposite. I would note that in some places fruit wood is used for handles, especially crab apple which is renowned  for it's suppleness.  I've bought several tools in Germany that basically had fruit tree limbs mounted as handles. (Unfortunately the handles got left behind so I could pack more items...)

[pnut]

1 hour ago, JHCC said:

Coarse grain isn't a problem with hammer handles if it's not too coarse

I worry about straight grain first. 

Pnut

[Virusds]

Ya i was talking about knife handles. Sorry for not clarifying. It is a pretty brittle wood when dry but it might work for hammer handles if you dried it in a certain way. Because when i do bushcraft (one of my hobbies) i use Russian olive for bows occasionally and i have heard that other people make self bows from it as well so it can be pretty flexible. But you are right it has a very coarse grain but it also has a very straight one.

[Frosty]

WHAT!! You didn't ask a clear question?  Go sit in a corner for 5 minutes and write "I'll ask clear questions from now on." Oh 7 times. Erasable markers are okay but Sharpie or lipstick will set the lesson  more permanently. The wife will do the reinforcing when she sees it. 

Epoxy stabilize the wood and it'll hold up just fine. "Cactus Juice wood stabilizer"(look it up, can't link you here) and a vacuum chamber can make wood nearly indestructible.  I used a small rectangular Pyrex dish with foam weather stripping clued to the rim, made a lid and borrowed a vac pump from a friend who services refrigeration systems. 

Or you can have it stabilized for not unreasonable. 

Frosty The Lucky.