Brad:
Ok, so when you go to a forest and cut down trees for the very first time, known as "old growth" the annual rings are very close together and dense. When this forest grows back the new trees are second growth. The rings of these trees aren't so close together, and this is suppose to be better for handles.

Flame hardening is a name given to treating the wood with a flame to give it some character and it doesn't actually harden the wood, at least that was what I was told.
If you view the pictures in my gallery on the FF you'll see the handles.
Jim