Home made handles

[organic guy]

I have started volunteering for a repair cafe  and expect to be re handling garden tools.

Too tight to cough up for ready made handles( and half the pleasure will be making handles) so am looking for advice about milling ash to use.

How fresh should I mill it, what size , how to dry and for how long?

Can I use it fresh?

Anything else you can think of?

 

TIA

 

OG

[Dan Maynard]

Did a green woodworking day a couple of weeks ago.

 

I think traditionally you would split and carve green (as softer), let it dry (and shrink), then final fit head.

 

Complete ash tools like a rake you'd obviously make the whole thing green.

[AHPP]

Watching with interest because I planked some ash for this purpose a few weeks ago. I think I went for  2" or 2.25" wet. I wouldn't use it wet because it'll then dry and shrink in the tool eye and be loose. Am aware of things like force drying in hot sand but no experience of it and would apply the normal rule that shortcuts are shortcuts.

 

I made an oak handle for a sledgehammer a few years ago. Octagonal like a Japanese carpentry saw. Irregular to feel slim and a palm swell in both dimensions. It's the bollocks, if I do say so myself.

Edited Friday at 22:28 by AHPP

[organic guy]

Love to see a picture of your axe handle 

I did put a green handle in a tiny hammer which quickly became loose, I am now feeding it with linseed oil

[sime42]

I posted this before, but I'll shamelessly show it off again. A rake that me and the lad made at the start of the year. Draw knifed handle from green ash, head and times from seasoned ash and random, (crap) dowel.

 

 

 

[sime42]

50 minutes ago, organic guy said:

I have started volunteering for a repair cafe  and expect to be re handling garden tools.

Too tight to cough up for ready made handles( and half the pleasure will be making handles) so am looking for advice about milling ash to use.

How fresh should I mill it, what size , how to dry and for how long?

Can I use it fresh?

Anything else you can think of?

 

TIA

 

OG

 

Are you planning to hand make the handles or use machines? If the latter, e.g. on a lathe then I'd let the wood season first. Otherwise shape it when green and then leave to shrink for final fitting, as Dan says.

[Macpherson]

I found this book years ago ' British trees and their past and present uses ' one of it's traditional suggestions was Rowan for tool handles.. which I've done quite a few times now, just for mostly hand tools that tend to lie about the garden wherever I was working last... ferrules are easily bought online.

 

British Native Trees - Their Past and Present Uses by -: Very Good Paperback (2006) | AwesomeBooks

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Free Shipping - ISBN: 9780954189952 - Paperback - - - 2006 - Condition: Very Good - British Native Trees - Their Past and Present Uses This book is in very good condition and will be...

 

[openspaceman]

23 hours ago, organic guy said:

I have started volunteering for a repair cafe  and expect to be re handling garden tools.

Too tight to cough up for ready made handles( and half the pleasure will be making handles) so am looking for advice about milling ash to use.

How fresh should I mill it, what size , how to dry and for how long?

Can I use it fresh?

Anything else you can think of?

 

TIA

 

OG

Well done, I bring a few homers back when I cannot get the job done in the couple of hours our repair cafe runs. Rust steel swing seat in my garden in mid repair today.

 

As has been said tool handles were often cleft, not because it was easier but because the grain is more likely to be continuous where a saw can cut across and leave it "short grained".

 

I know scythe handles were steamed to get the curves but I imagine some were straightened similarly to make rake handles.

[Stere]

I bought a load of fork handles from sam turners.

 

 

 

The top T peices were not very well attached though

 

I like the old one piece handle design  but they aren't sold anywhere as handle blanks in the UK would be nice to make some  but maybe with  the wood grain direction they look abit weak versus the metal D versions?

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 23:31 by Stere

[Steven P]

Only 1 way to find out!

 

 

 

(Small story: I made a wheel barrow hopper out of pallets - first lockdown, couldn't get into a shop - anyway, that hopper has outlasted the rest of it, admittedly the donor parts were all ready 10 years old at the time, if you don't try it will never work)