Where does hickory grow?

[tj240]

i do alot of work in the albany new york area and we come across quite a bit of hickory if its not a veneer log we sell it for firewood some of it is real good size. where are you located? message me maybe we can work out something

[bill m]

I live in western Ma. and we have a lot of Hickory here. Shagbark and Bitternut. We don't have much of a market for it here so it gets left for wildlife food.

[Al_Smith]

FWIW I have all three varieties in my woods .Shag bark,shell bark and bitter nut (smooth bark).Fact the floor my desk chair is on while I type this post is hickory veneer  .Something is causing the shag bark to die .Odd 90 -100 foot healthy looking trees too .

[NBaxeman]

Great answers guys.  The maps are great and show shagbark up into southern Maine, Pignut into Mass.  I landed 10 - 16 inch logs here in New Brunswick 12 foot long just yesterday.   Peeling the hickory was a rough job.  It must peel better in a week or two once the cambium starts working - anyone know the answer to this?   

Hey - great pics of you making axe handles.   I'm curious though, do you use both sapwood and heartwood>  Also I see you actually draw your pattern at 90 degrees to what an old fellow here told me.   I draw my pattern on the smooth side that splits off directly opposite the bark (so when I saw it on the bandsaw, bark side is face down).  I was told if the grain runs the length of the eye it is stronger than across the eye where a split may follow the grain.   

I've split out 13 - 3 foot bolts so far and you are spot on with splitting.    Any bolts with knots, burls or other imperfections split lousy.....but man, the veneer quality logs split like a dream - true and straight.    I'm very impressed so far- hickory is stringy, heavy, seems very strong, and not quite as flexible as ash.....but should make for some great handles.   I'm air-drying it in my carport at present, and I'm hoping it will be usable as early as this fall.

I also use mostly a spoke shave to shape my handles, then finish with a rasp, sometimes broken glass or sandpaper.   Most of these racing axe handles are 30" long, but if someone brings me the original, I'll make anything from an offset hewing axe to a removable pick axe handle and peavey handles.   I'm really looking forward to working with these blanks this fall.   Thanks for all the great info here guys. 

Hey New York - thanks a lot for the offer, but I'm trying to find a place as close to Maine or in Maine as I can.   It was an 18 hour trip last week to get these 10 logs, but as \I said, the way it's splitting, I'm very happy and should be able to get quite a stockpile of handle blanks.   Hopefully you'll be seeing them on TSN and the STIHL series before long!~

[Al_Smith]

The only "real " logging I ever did was a 5 acre patch of large hickory about 1980 .

It was during a time period that farm land prices escalated and thousands of acres of 5-10 -20 acre patchs of woods fell to the mighty D8 Caterpilars .

The logs were on 50 percent with the land owner but they didn't pay much .Probabley a little more than firewood with less work in involved .We cut the tops for firewood and I think the logs went to Louisville KY .

Nice logs about 24" and you might get 35 feet of clear log per tree .

[mesquite buckeye]

Good tree country, but taxes and land cost so high it is hard to justify unless it is rock. Then it isn't good tree country. :-\

[Dodgy Loner]

Peeling the hickory was a rough job.  It must peel better in a week or two once the cambium starts working - anyone know the answer to this?   

Peeling the bark is difficult during winter. Once the leaves start pushing out and the sap starts flowing, it's stupid easy. The bark will peel off in a solid sheet. Obviously, I prefer to harvest my hickory in the spring!

Hey - great pics of you making axe handles.   I'm curious though, do you use both sapwood and heartwood>  Also I see you actually draw your pattern at 90 degrees to what an old fellow here told me.   I draw my pattern on the smooth side that splits off directly opposite the bark (so when I saw it on the bandsaw, bark side is face down).  I was told if the grain runs the length of the eye it is stronger than across the eye where a split may follow the grain.   

It's different for different woods. USFS testing has showed that ash is stronger when oriented as you describe, but hard maple is actually stronger when oriented the other way. I'm not aware of any research on hickory, but it's so strong that I don't believe it matters. I orient it the way I do for two reasons: 1) if there is any tension in the wood than causes the handle to bend over time, the bend will be parallel to the blade, where it won't matter as much, and 2) the way I split out my billets, the radial dimension is usually the widest. With hickory, though, do whatever makes ya happy. It'll last.

[beenthere]

testing has showed that ash is stronger when oriented as you describe,

DL
Have you a source for this info?  My understanding is there is no significant difference found between bending strength parallel to grain vs. perpendicular to grain. 
However the baseball bat industry has for good many years acted like there is a difference with ash (strike the ball with the brand up), as well as the tool handle industry such as shovel handles.

[Black_Bear]

testing has showed that ash is stronger when oriented as you describe,

DL
Have you a source for this info?  My understanding is there is no significant difference found between bending strength parallel to grain vs. perpendicular to grain. 
However the baseball bat industry has for good many years acted like there is a difference with ash (strike the ball with the brand up), as well as the tool handle industry such as shovel handles.

This paper may have the answer you are looking for:

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr190/chapter_05.pdf

[Al_Smith]

It makes a lot of difference in selecting a good axe or sledge hammer handle .

It seems here of late I go through a lot of them that don't suit me if I were to purchase one .Old school ,I go with the Louisville slugger theory .

[Dodgy Loner]

It makes a lot of difference in selecting a good axe or sledge hammer handle .

It seems here of late I go through a lot of them that don't suit me if I were to purchase one .Old school ,I go with the Louisville slugger theory .

I really think that it only matters with ash. I don't think choosing hickory with the rings oriented parallel to the swing is particularly old school. I got the suggestion to orient the rings perpendicularly to the swing from an early-1800s reference. But darned if I could remember where. The reasoning was to prevent a bent handle in the case of stress that manifests itself over time. Works for me. But either way is fine.

[Dodgy Loner]

testing has showed that ash is stronger when oriented as you describe,

DL
Have you a source for this info?  My understanding is there is no significant difference found between bending strength parallel to grain vs. perpendicular to grain.

Good reading: http://www.woodbat.org

[Al_Smith]

Now as far as a ball bat I've seen many a good old Louisville slugger break from hiting it cross grain .

I've also seen cheap shovels break like tooth picks and a good old Ames bend like a noodle and not break .

Couple years ago I made a handle for a cant hook from a sharkbark hickory sapling .Took me a couple hours with a draw knife .I'll gaurentee it will last longer than I will .My grandson probabley will able to use it and he's only 4 .--ornery got that from his grandmother  ;)

[Dodgy Loner]

I made an axe handle with the rings oriented "baseball bat-style" about 3 years ago.



The stock had been air-dried for 5 years, and the handle was perfectly straight when I made it. After a few months, it looked like this:





No doubt the handle would have still bent had I oriented the grain the other way, but the bend would have been in line with the direction of swing and pretty harmless. As it is, this axe is useless. I need to make another handle for it, but I have more axes than time ;D

Come to think of it, I wish I had used that blank to make a handle for a broadaxe :D

[WDH]

Dodgy,

It is not good to have too many axes to grind.

[NBaxeman]

DL - I don't think the bend in your handle has anything to do with grain orientation, but everything to do with it being leaned against a wall during the time it wasn't used.   I have found this in many axe handles that have not been hung on a nail or laid flat - the weight and lean cause the wood to sag when a handle is leaned against a wall.   Many a lumberjack have experienced this and then tried to "blame it" on hanging or worse - the wood itself when really it's all about long-term storage.

Our hanging techniques vary a little bit, but I'm hanging a 5 pound razor sharp axe whereas you are hanging a bit more rustic pieces.  I'm sure there are as many perspectives on this as there are tree species!   I started hanging axe handles similar to your technique, but got my hands on a DVD from my axe manufacturer in New Zealand that had a bit more advice.   Now, I spoke shave the handle so the head fits easily 3/4 of the way onto the handle, and gently tap the head into place the last 1/4.   If is doesn't go easily, you need to rasp/spoke shave just a bit more off so it fits snugly.    I have found over the past 25 years that if you drive the axe head on the last 1/4 and compress this wood at the base of the head, it becomes a stress point and the handle will break here routinely.   Also, cutting a "shelf" for the axe head to rest upon, or driving the axe head on with "wood curl" at the base - both of these also create a stress point and the handle will typically break at this point at some point.

Again, perhaps the size of the head and the actual use of the axe makes this a bit more critical in our world when you have a crowd of 1000 spectators watching you chop only 50 feet away and if the head comes off you have a 5 pound razor blade flying into people.....so it matters a bit more than if it's a smaller axe used to split kindling or something.  Just some food for thought.

I have really enjoyed the information and advice here men - thanks

[beenthere]

DL
Was handle in the axe one that you hand split out of a block? Or a sawn blank.

Just wondering if the grain along the length was straight and didn't run out along the length.

[mesquite buckeye]

I looked over the technical report. Elastic bending does not equal impact stress.

I have had lots of practical experience with landscape crews breaking wooden handles from various types of abuse. The very first handles to break are the ones with sloped grain across the handle. Shovel handles like that will be broken in the first day or two.

Picks, axes and hoes (usually hickory and ash in that order) both seem to shatter more quickly when the grain/head orientation is anything other than parallel to the grain.

Most of the old, well used tools I have seen have parallel grain. Survival over time is a good witness to durability.

I spend a fair amount of time when I buy a new wooden handled striking tool to make sure the handle is perfectly straight and the grain as close to parallel as I can find. My tool handles last a very long time. ;D

[Dodgy Loner]

The cause of the bend was without question due to latent stress in the wood. It was a riven blank, not sawed (like all of my axe handles). I hang my axes on a nail for storage. There is no way that leaning a handle against a wall could result in the severe bend in my handle, anyway.

If you look at the rings on the first picture, it's easy to see why the problem occurred. The blank was taken from a smaller diameter tree, as indicated by the absence of heartwood and the curvature of the rings. The center rings contain juvenile wood, and the outer rings more mature wood. The differential stresses between the juvenile and mature wood caused the handle to bend over time. While drying, the blank was much thicker, and the greater beam strength of the thick blank was sufficient to hold the blank straight. Thinning the blank for the handle reduced the beam strength, increasing the flexibility of the handle, and allowing the distortion to manifest itself over a period of a few months.

The lesson here was to not make axe handles with juvenile wood. The same defect could occur in a tree with tension wood due to a lean. This can be avoided if you have picked out and felled the tree yourself (as I do), or detected in a log as evidenced by an off-center pith.

Also, I would like to point out that I do not leave the shelf created by driving the head onto the handle. After this step, I remove the handle and fair the area to avoid creating the stress point, as you noted. I have never noted a problem of compression. The only time I have ever broken an axe handle was using a sawn, store-bought handle. They always break along the grain - I have never seen hickory break across the grain. But as you pointed out, I am not helving 5-lb heads for professional axemen, either. I have no doubt that your work demands greater precision than mine. I also have no doubt that the handles I make beat the pants off of anything you can buy from a hardware store ;)

[Dodgy Loner]

Picks, axes and hoes (usually hickory and ash in that order) both seem to shatter more quickly when the grain/head orientation is anything other than parallel to the grain.

Most of the old, well used tools I have seen have parallel grain. Survival over time is a good witness to durability.

I'd love to see you try to shatter one of my axe handles :D

[beenthere]

DL
Good explanation...  8)

[mesquite buckeye]

Picks, axes and hoes (usually hickory and ash in that order) both seem to shatter more quickly when the grain/head orientation is anything other than parallel to the grain.

Most of the old, well used tools I have seen have parallel grain. Survival over time is a good witness to durability.

I'd love to see you try to shatter one of my axe handles :D

I don't like breaking handles.

But I know a guy who can break anything. He has a gift. ;D

I've found perfect handles in hardware stores. Perfectly straight parallel grain, perfect manufacture, perfectly straight. I might have to look through 50 handles to find that one. Guess they just get lucky once in a while.

As the old saying goes, "Even a blind sow will occasionally find and acorn." ;D

Ever make a handle out of figured hickory?

[NBaxeman]

DL - definitely on the same page asyou in regards to younger trees.   I too use the oldest, largest trees. I then split the wood on the outside (sapwood - usually whiter in color on ash and hickory) from the heartwood, and try not to use them together in the same handle.

I have one more question - how many here make handles from hickory heartwood?    Seems strong and durable enough.  If it will work, remain strong and not bend (as in DL's example of more curvature in smaller diameter wood) It would double the number of handles one could split from a block.    I have split these out and have them air drying along with the other......just trying to avoid return handles down the road.

[mesquite buckeye]

The sapwood has more spring. In the old days (1920's and 30's) my dad said the handle guys wanted second growth hickory, which would have been faster growing and with thick sapwood. I think the trick is to get the entire handle out of sapwood. Big fast growing logs would do that. ;D

If it was all sapwood instead of half sap/half heart, maybe you would get less curvature.

If you were worried about curving, you could cross cut the billets to near the center but outside the finish handle depth to get it to pre move before thinning them out for finish. Might help.

[Farmer Jim]

Also, I would like to point out that I do not leave the shelf created by driving the head onto the handle. After this step, I remove the handle and fair the area to avoid creating the stress point, as you noted. I have never noted a problem of compression. The only time I have ever broken an axe handle was using a sawn, store-bought handle. They always break along the grain - I have never seen hickory break across the grain. But as you pointed out, I am not helving 5-lb heads for professional axemen, either. I have no doubt that your work demands greater precision than mine. I also have no doubt that the handles I make beat the pants off of anything you can buy from a hardware store ;)

I make my own tool handles also.  I believe that the head is not to be driven on. It is my understanding, and the way I helve a tool, that the handle should be started into the eye and then the tool lifted off the ground and using a mallet strike the end of the handle. The tool will climb onto the handle and the tool head is never struck or marred. If the head doesn't climb on then more rasp or shave work is needed.