Don, I would favor a simple naturally curved handle. The heart of the matter, for me, rests in the simplicity of constructing a single piece handle. As mentioned earlier, I have one which broke and was repaired, it was constructed from straighter grain and is fragile, I did not take a little more time to find the right piece of wood. I am now stocking, meaning, looking for and saving handle wood. A laminated handle verges on mass production, something I want to stay away from, next thing you know they are available to the masses and the mass will not know the roots from which the handle arose. To learn how to use a tool, one should make the handle as the first steps, just as a philosophy.

Historically, how many laminated handles were made?

Tim

There was an article in the Timber Framing magazine a while ago about making a laminated offset handle. I don't know the issue number but it was interesting to see.

Hey Tim & Jim:

Thanks for your comments. I see your point about tradition, Tim. I posses the same philosophy on many levels. I'm guessing laminated handles were not made way back when because of adhesive technology. Wood was manipulated historically, however (steam bending, etc).

If anyone knows that particular TF issue Jim refers to, I'd be interested to see the article.

Here's a few pics of my homemade laminated canoe paddles, the shafts of which I've found are considerably stronger than solid varieties-- see the repaired solid shaft paddle on the right.

The one on the left is mahogany and spruce. The other is maple, cherry and spruce, w/ a walnut tip...

I’m with Tim, even though I know and have split off juggles with a hewer who lams up his own handles and know them to have served him well…

I’ve had equally long service with solid handles and natural curves. And my style of lefthanded hewing, log to my left, left hand forward, requires an especially heavy and immediate curve. My power / lifting / control hand is my forward hand, my forward hand, is to the log, not the fingers of my opposite hand, so my southpaw requires a couple inches of clearance, just south of the poll.

Service life on any handle, but especially ax handles hinges on how well they are hung more than any other factor. An extra fifteen at the shaving horse fitting it just so, has proved to be what adds years to a handles service for me.

But then, I’ve never found the logic in sawing or laminating curves into wood, it grows crooked everyday !

Nice to have you back on the forum, Will.

Wood grows crooked everyday. Now if it would only grow to the shape we need...

Training a small tree or a branch to grow a certain way might facilitate a nice handle.

I'd like to try my hand at making both solid and laminated handles one day.

Hi everyone tonight

Well this is a rather interesting thread one that I certainly am enjoying immensely all the great responses.

Talking about growing curves for specific purposed, it is an old technology, for instance, trees for canes were nurtured from their infancy in different forms by just tying them when they were young and tender shoots.

I just have to throw this in here as I read all your posts, the old people would just take a piece of straight grained green wood alittle heavier than what would be required and secure it in some strong wood cleavage such as the rung of a ladder in the barn floor, with rope pull it and secure with stout rope, so that it had the bend in the proper place and leave it until well cured

This is a time consuming method but produces a good straight grained bent offset wood blank for the subsequent reduction into a handle or other object needed. I might also add that you really need green wood for this type of bending not kiln dried.

NH

Hi again tonight

Just before I leave I wonder if any of you guys out there are familiar with the offset reversible broadaxe handle?

Any comments

NH

Free-Range, Cordless, Y2K Compliant? Do you have picture or a drawing?

hello again everyone tonight:

Hi Joel nice to have our administrator visit our thread but I cannot understand the connection of what you are asking for in relation to what we are chatting about, so unless I get a little bit more info I cannot respond unfortunately

Getting back to the various comments above I am quite interested in Will's remark's about his style of left handed hewing. Part of it I am comfortable with like "left hand forward"--this is normal practice--but then--"log to my left"--this last part I am not familiar with. Most left handed hewers that I have seen or been around work as follows--"left hand forward, and log to the right"--

I realize that everyone works in different ways, but this is certainly an unusual style and one that I have never seen.

Over the years of pairing up hewers on large timbers during the hewing process a right hand hewer and a left hand hewer could work facing one another on the same side of the log simply because of the opposite way they stand, working from the ends of the log towards the centre point.

Many large hewn timber display the remaining telltale bites of the scoring axes as they were driven into the finished surfaces from different angles usually by a right and left handed hewer working on the same log and on the same surface.

I am sure that you do work as you describe Will and I assume that you are adaptable to swinging an axe right or left handed easily, as many old timers could as the situation warranted.

I wonder for the sake of everyone looking in on this thread if you could explain a little further on your unusual style of hewing, and maybe a picture or two.

Thanks again this is interesting information and I (we) are waiting for your reply

NH

I would say Joel is saying axe handles are found in the outdoors and need a little work as any chicken does, cordless means just that, no cord to chop off, and the axe is Y2K compliant, no computer to malfunction, unless the operator goes nuts, then you could make a movie out of it.

There is many ways to skin a cat, or hew a log.

Tim