Where does hickory grow?

[Dodgy Loner]

Yes, Jim, that's how I do it as well. You can see it in the tutorial i linked to earlier in the thread.

NBAxeman- it is my understanding that hickory heartwood is just as strong as the sapwood. All early references recommend using only the sapwood under the assumption that the heartwood was more brittle, bu USFS testing in the early 1900s disproved the assumption. However, this is secondhand knowledge, I'm afraid. I do not know where you would find the original references for this data. I rarely run across hickory with a significant percentage if heartwood, so I have never made a handle using the heartwood. I wouldn't hesitate to do it if I had high-quality heartwood, but then, I'm not selling my handles. Traditions can be hard to break.

[NBaxeman]

I've tried to make a few handles out of the hickory, but I find it pretty frustrating to work with a spoke shave and rasp when it's wet.   Ash actually works much easier when it is freshly cut.    I think I'll need a few months drying the hickory until it's decent to work.   

[Dodgy Loner]

Yes, hickory is really stringy when green and less so when dry. It usually works nicely with a drawknife when green, but I can imagine that the rasp and spokeshave would be frustrating until it dries out some. If I knew what I were making ahead of time, I would go ahead and rough out my blanks while they were still green. But I never know what I need until I need it, so I just dry the riven blanks and work them down when I need something.

[mpuste]

Has anyone tried making axe or other tool handles from black locust?  Black locust is heavy, hard, and shock resistant like hickory.

[Dodgy Loner]

No, but I think black locust would be a decent substitute if you are unable to find hickory.

[Magicman]

Black Locust splits very easily.  I would imagine that that (Tom) quality would/could/might have a negative affect somewhere in the handle building or handle use.

[Dodgy Loner]

Ash, white oak, hard maple, and the best hickory also split very easily, and they are all good woods for making handles. That is one of the defining traits of woods that make good handles - they allow you to exploit the weakness across the grain (by splitting, rather than sawing) so that you can maintain maximum strength along the grain.

[Magicman]

I love learning stuff.   

[SwampDonkey]

NBAxeman, I don't know why you don't source some ironwood (O. virginiana). ;D This is a traditional axe handle wood up here in NB. Use of white ash, as far as my knowledge goes, was a commercialized venture because it grows bigger and very abundant. They make ash handles nearby here at Garant's in Woodstock.  But mom's uncle made handles from ironwood for 70+ years. My uncle (mom's brother) once split lots of firewood by hand and would find out real quick how good a handle was. Red oak was useless, ash was a lot better, and ironwood would never fail as a handle, other than from wear around the base which gets chewed up when splitting a lot of wood. Not even hickory will withstand this wear. It happens, as not all wood splits even, it's often jagged, and this bites into the wood of the handle over time. An axe handle rarely used will last a mighty long time. ;D I've make axe handles from hard maple. The last ones I made about 30 years ago and I've never broke any of them. One is with me camping all summer. They were all hand carved.

Natives here used ash traditionally, and not white ash at all, it was black ash. It was used for basket weaving and snow shoes. It was lighter than white ash when it dried. I grew up near a reservation and they only used black ash. Even though there's lots of white ash to, they never touched it. They would pound the ash to loosen the fibres. It was a common sound to here, kinda like the church bells in a sense. They used to make baskets for potato picking, the farmers would buy a lot of them.

My father would also cut ash saplings and rive them in the spring to fix barrels, by replacing the outer hoops. The barrels were cedar, light. A full barrel of potatoes (165 lbs) is heavy enough without using a heavy wood. Those barrels were plenty strong to and made locally. ;)

Now-a-days you buy a tool with an ash handle and the replacement handle is often hickory and expensive, relatively speaking. Nothing wrong with hickory, but why import wood for such small market? If I had a choice, I'd reach for ironwood. ;) ;D

[Dodgy Loner]

NBAxeman, I don't know why you don't source some ironwood (O. virginiana). ;D This is a traditional axe handle wood up here in NB. Use of white ash, as far as my knowledge goes, was a commercialized venture because it grows bigger and very abundant.

I think the use of ash as a handle wood goes back way farther than that. Hickory is absent from Europe, so the finest wood at their disposal for thousands of years was European ash. Ash is still the predominant wood for handles in most of Europe. When the Europeans came to North America, they began utilizing the familiar white ash for handles before learning about the incredible strength of hickory. White ash is still a fine wood for handles, but hickory is, of course, better. Since we have hickory down here, I have never been tempted to use ironwood, but I have no doubt that it makes a fine handle.

[SwampDonkey]

Could be, but I'm in NB not Europe, thus our tradition is different. I have heard over the years from many people, that they would like some ironwood for this handle or that. It is a tradition. Lots of people cherish a nice ironwood, while others consider it a weed. Hickory is another traditional wood down your way. That is my point. ;) Ash is a lot more abundant than ironwood, thus a lot easier to commercialize.

[Mark Wentzell]

Used both white ash and ironwood handles when I competed in lumberjack competitions. Ironwood ones seemed to break less although it took a lot for either woods to break.

Seems a lot of the ironwood around here likes to grow crooked, might make it hard to find one that'll make a handle. A lot of it gets cut as firewood.

[SwampDonkey]

Ones I have grow nice and straight, so it could be site as much as anything I suppose. At the front steps of the 'Old' Forestry building at UNB is a big old ironwood tree. 8)   Most of that building was from local material. The birdseye maple laboratory tables in the wood products class, the slate steps and chalk boards, the maple floors, and the stone exterior walls. My grandmother's cousin was in the first graduating class of Foresters from there, who became chief forester of NB. ;)

I have two here on the lawn, I like the papery fruit sacks when they are still green, real showy.

[WDH]

When you open up the canopy here on the hardwood sites, the ostrya goes wild.  It is hard to control, and it will take over as it is shade tolerant. 

[Magicman]

One more "nother" question about Black Locust.  When I am clearing with the tractor, I see that Black Locust will break and shatter more easily while Hickory, Elm, etc. will bend.  How would this figure into the handle equation?  Still just curious.   ???

[LeeB]

I got a nother nother (Tom?) question. What about some other none tradtionals like hackberry and sycamore? Too weak, too interlocked? What other woods wood you mebbe use?

[Dodgy Loner]

One more "nother" question about Black Locust.  When I am clearing with the tractor, I see that Black Locust will break and shatter more easily while Hickory, Elm, etc. will bend.  How would this figure into the handle equation?  Still just curious.   ???

Strength characteristics don't tell the whole story, but the modulus of elasticity and modulus of rupture for air-dry black locust is comparable to hickory and higher than ash. I still think that quality black locust would make a decent handle. Black locust down here tends to be small and to have a lot of defect from locust borers, which may help explain the weakness that you have noted. Larger, healthier trees will yield better wood.

[Al_Smith]

I have no doubt that the wood might change depending on the area .Mineral content climate etc .

I've seen black locust up to two feet in diameter and once a honey locust over 4 feet . Ironwood (hop horn beam ) seldom over 12 inches with maybe over 100 growth rings in that small of a tree.Talk about dense .

I've got both 3 feet ash,EAB dead of course and 3 feet shagbark .The shag is stronger but will not take weather .Ash to weather is so so ,not the best .

[NBaxeman]

Swamp Donkey;

Actually, we shouldn't steer people too far down the path with Ironwood.  Traditionally, NOT being ring porous it has poor shock-resistance - unlike ash, oak and hickory.  However, it's tensile strength is incredible due to its dense nature and is why it was always used for whiffle-trees here for centuries.   Even now I use Ironwood for turning peavey handles....you simply can't break them cross-grain.    However, Ironwood in a chopping (axe) handle is murder.....white knuckle you to death as it carries all the vibrations right into your hand.   

I will only use Ironwood in a handle that is not used for chopping (like a throwing axe handle, or a kettle boil handle).   I've made a few because they sure are pretty.....but pragmatically, pretty useless in a chopping handle.   I have turned out 5 peavey handles recently - all of ironwood and they are certainly impressive.  Hey Mark - who made your ironwood chopping handle??

By the way donkey - I'm here in Keswick Ridge.

[Dodgy Loner]

I have no doubt that the wood might change depending on the area .Mineral content climate etc .

I agree. Down here, our ash is useless for chopping handles. It's green ash, not white ash, which has always been considered inferior, but I made a hammer handle from it once for lack of hickory, and the thing broke cross-grain the very first time I used it. I've never seen anything like it. It was frighteningly easy to break. I still use our ash for things like froe handles, but never again for a hammer or axe. Even though I'm referring to two different (but very similar, from a morphological viewpoint) species, it would not surprise me if a wide variance in wood properties were present within a single species, either. Especially a species as variable and with as wide a range as black locust.

[isawlogs]

 Traditionaly I have always made my axe handles with Ironwood, only recently have I tried White ash, I may be getting some hickory this summer if a friend here comes across some that I could go pick up. 

[SwampDonkey]

I never remember my uncle complaining about ironwood when splitting several cords of stove wood by hand every spring by the barn. Tough I guess. I do remember complaints of broken ash handles, when he went to his uncle to make a good ironwood one. What ash does, and every handle I've seen is it splits right down the pore wood and now you have a head with a spear on one end and a shortened handle with a spear point on it to. I don't remember ironwood doing that. I only seen ironwood fail when the wood was chewed up so bad it had no choice but fail. :D ;)