"Weak" handles, revisited

Here's a guest post from our friend and fellow "challenger of the status quo" Eric C. from Maine, followed by commentary from Peter.

Handle made by Eric C., described below.

Getting a grip -- handle overkill  
by Eric C.

I think the purism that people still cling to regarding traits of the ideal axe handle is probably contributing to the general supply of shite handles. Hickory is probably way overcut as a result, probably compromising its quality to some extent. I don't know anything about trees from a scientific standpoint, but I know that you don't need to use sawn and then lathe turned (or even riven and hand carved) hickory handles for every axe of every weight. The shrinking abundance will continue to decline until we figure out how to redefine abundance further down the line. 

I have heard that White Oak was once the preferred handle material (from an axe historian specializing in the late 1700s until around 1900).  It was cut for ships and tool handles, presumably, and this was when population and consumption was way lower. In the absence of oil-driven machines, which is an inevitability, the supply of hickory and ash will probably drop like a brick.  Not taken into account is the startling decrease in the quality of hickory handle stock.The handle pictured here was made out of a stave of Birch around 3 inches in diameter at the large end. There are two knots in it, and the piece wasn't large enough to completely fill the eye, with about a 6mm or 8mm gap on the poll side which I filled with a shim. I don't believe Birch to be as strong as maple or ash, but I still thinned this one down to 3/4 of an inch, and in one place down to 5/8 of an inch.

Since it wouldn't have given me enough material to work with by splitting it in half, I worked with it in the round as a single stave, to try and get one handle out of. The smaller end became the knob, and I just hewed the handle off to one side. Since I hewed the knob out of the small end with the circumferential grain, where there is way less stress and risk of breakage, I was able to get grain parallel to direction of force on the upper half or two thirds of the handle. How strong does a 24" handle need to be for an axe that weighs less than two pounds? I have no reservations about using this axe for jobs within its realistic limitations.

Material of this size is usually burned, left to rot in the woods, or maybe turned into spoons or something by the slightly less wasteful but still somewhat resourceful spoon-carving hippy. Not that there is anything wrong with those things, but when said man goes to fell a hickory to make a couple handles for 2.5 pound axes when he could have used a Birch branch and produced a handle more than durable enough to be used in context with the weight of the head and job at hand, the context changes.

The inspiration for that axe was the Vido's little Sandvik axe mentioned here (giving credit where it's due), with a Birch handle of the same grain pattern and size, and the same size head. They still use that axe extensively, and it's been through more than mine probably ever will. It also has 5 knots compared to the measly 2 knots in mine (wish it had more, was disappointed).

An abundance of material is still here, but not an abundance of prerequisite skills and the time to nurse them into a deeper sense of what will work and what won't.

Commentary from Peter Vido:

Thanks for sharing your status quo-challenging thoughts. You and I seem to be on the same page regarding ax handles -- their basic shape, thickness and what material they be made of. The notion that an ax needs a handle from the strongest/most break-resistant wood (regardless of distance it is obtained) I also consider to be both myth and a trap. For centuries axes have been swung on locally sourced handles, and many of the coldest regions (Siberia, a large part of Scandinavia and the Canadian 'North') have no species of adequately thick dimensions stronger than white birch.

To address the hickory obsession: It may well be the Northern Hemisphere's finest ax-handle wood; however, the pertinent question (at this shaky point in history) is: do we all need it? On several levels, a strong case can be made for a definite "NO".

Nevertheless, on the whole we've reached this stage (of our sleepy journey) where hickory can pose as the cat's meow of ax handle wood to the point that some of the prestigious European ax makers (Gransfors Bruks, for instance) now find it profitable to import hickory from USA, stick it into their fine ax heads and ship a portion back across the ocean for sale to American ax lovers.  Plus, the European populace is now also being trained to purchase axes outfitted with this famous wood. I consider that preposterous; instead of inspiring young people to appreciate the gifts of creation laying at their feet, and helping them learn how to best use them, we let the beast of Globalization pursue its insidious agenda…

What many folks today do not seem to understand is that in order to fully fulfill its function, an ax does not need to be wielded with brute force; what's actually required is a type of force that's different from what most inexperienced ax users perceive.

In brief, a moment before the bit hits the target, the direct force behind it is greatly reduced, and the weight of the head (along with the already generated velocity) is left to pursue the task. That is how the old-timers could "chop all day and love it". And their very slim handles (mostly sugar maple or white ash, along with some hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana, also called "ironwood") lasted for years.

Contacting with full force right through the stroke is one way to break handles -- even many of those made of the so-called 'perfectly aligned' hickory.  Besides, a hickory handle is in itself no guarantee against breakage, especially nowadays. For instance, here is a firsthand true story: 

Back in 1979, an old man gave me a 20-pound head for a fence post pounding maul. Being slightly more naive than I am now, I fitted it with a store-bought hickory handle. Shortly afterwards a friend asked to borrow it, and the next day he broke that handle. As a respectful borrower, before bringing it back he bought another new hickory handle and replaced the broken one. Not very many fence posts later the handle snapped again, right under the head -- which flew off and narrowly missed my wife Faye who was steadying the post for me. No, I did not overreach; those boughten hickory handles apparently could not take that 20 pounds of steel (with an admittedly small eye in the maul).

My brother Alex walked into the nearby woods, came back shortly with a hornbeam sapling and replaced the broken hickory with it.

That was the summer of 1980.  Now, 32 years and I don't know how many hundreds of posts later, that very same handle is still intact. It never took a season off work, and although I have meant to replace it long ago -- just as a precaution to not endanger Faye, who still steadies the posts -- it functions as it always did, driving posts until the ground freezes solid in late autumn. 

So there you have it:  One example of local wood versus imported hickory...

End grain of maul handle

"Weak" handles

Much of the handle-related discussions (at least in the forums I have read) concern grain alignment. Yes, that is a pertinent strength-related issue, and I certainly agree that the closer a handle maker can come to the vertically positioned and continuous grain, the better.

However, I want to present an additional question – one already partially addressed in my views pertaining to handle dimensions. To frame this question within the context of a discussion about axes, it may go something like this:

How weak can an ax handle be (and still prove itself useful)?

Here is another true story:

The exact year when I made the handle in the photos (above and below) has now faded from my memory, but it was sometime soon after we obtained Keeping Warm with an Ax (by D. Cook) which puts it about 15 years ago.

Note that the handle is relatively straight near the bottom end (already Dudley Cook’s influence?), yet I also wanted to retain that “head slightly back of the line of grip” feature which many old axmen incorporated into their single bit handle design. The easiest way to accomplish this, and still end up with a through-running grain (which most single bit handles do not have nowadays) is to find a naturally grown piece of wood in already that shape.

Without exception, every instructional source on ax handle making I’ve come across suggests that you begin by selecting a piece of straight grained tree trunk, 8 inches (20cm) diameter or larger, split out the billets, season them, etc.

Well, mindful that (sometimes) “rules are made for fools”, I stuck as much as possible to the continuous grain concept -- but in every other aspect broke the rules. That handle is made out of a non-seasoned branch less than 3 inches diameter from a white birch tree which I had just cut for firewood. It had exactly the curve I was looking for, so I shaped it still green, fit that 1¾ lb (800g) Sandvik head to it, gave it a coat of boiled linseed oil (cut with a little turpentine) and began to use it – carefully at first. I liked that handle instantly. At its slimmest section it is 18mm thick, by the way.

About two years later, during winter, I lost that ax in the woods. There it laid for a season and a half, in snow, wet leaves and snow again. When I found it the following spring, some fungus was beginning to make a Slow Food meal of it. (Note the surface wood deterioration below the head on the side which had been touching the Earth.)

As some of you may know, white birch (Betula alba) is not a particularly weather resistant wood; in fact, some would say it is absolutely “no good” in that respect. Having once been oiled, and already seasoned before being lost did help its survival – but some damage was there to stay.

Nevertheless, we’ve used that little ax rather extensively ever since. Occasionally, it has (again forgotten) spent an additional night under the stars...

The chief point of this story: A functional ax handle does not always need to be made of what is considered first class wood. The handle being discussed here has 3 major knots (seen from both sides) and 2 minor knots – a flaw that every handle-making how-to source would consider a serious no-no. In addition, white birch is considerably weaker than ash or sugar maple, never mind hickory.

Admittedly, a 1¾ lb head on a 24” handle (which probably started as 25”) is not a serious tree-chopping or firewood splitting ax – and thus does not need to be excessively strong. However, we do not baby our axes (as might some weekend campers with their $100 hatchets) – and this little “orphan” has done its full share of what I’d expect of that size of an ax.

To be continued...