Thread: Best local timbers for handling hammers?

Spotted Gum makes pretty good axe and hammer handles. Tuart is also pretty good and so is Karri (although the splinters are pretty nasty) but they won't be too local for you.

Short fiber woods tend to be brittle to the point of brashness = bend, bend then fail completely.
Long fiber woods are more elastic but that has to be played against strength..

As far as which is which, you could do no better than ask CSIRO Forest Products Division.
40+ years ago, there was quit a bit of fiber research for papermaking.

Is APM still in business? Somebody in their quality department might be able to blow the dust off
some reports.

Fibre length per se isn't the only criterion for handle woods. If it were so, all softwoods would outperform all hardwoods, & we know that ain't so. There are clearly other factors that go to make up the eventual strength & shock resistance of a given wood, but I'm no wood technologist & can't tell you what they are. One property I do value in handle woods is the ability to take a smooth & splinter-free surface, which is where Spotted gum (Corymbia maculata) often lets me down. Many of the Acacias make excellent handles, with very good strength to weight, and you can produce a very nice, splinter-free surface on virtually all Acacias. There are several species known as "Hickory wattle" in their various localities. along the east coast. If you can get your paws on some of that, I don't think you'll be sorry. Haven't tried Blackwood, but if you can get good dense, straight-grained stuff it ought to be quite good....

There are a few species up my way that I'd like to get my hands on - one of these, Aphananthe philippinensis, has the common name "axe handle wood" and was said to be so good, they cut them all down to get enough axe handles to clear the bush, so now it's rare! You can buy seedlings from some nurseries, but I suspect you want your new handles before they might be ready.....

Cheers,

Ian your a wealth of information. Be great to have a resource of Australian timber and it uses. So much on the internet is based on northern hemisphere species. Maybe even a comparison so if they say oak then an australian timber with similar properties would be xyz?

These are for new heads I have hand forged, so it would be wrong to put store bought handles on them. As they will be my daily users, and be pounding away on steel continuously all day the handles need to be up to the task.

Ian, No I don't have time to grow the handles from seed.

I have just cut down a bottle brush of some kind, how well would a green wood handle go?? Could I microwave a small enough piece?? Side note, what is the smallest useable dia of stick worth saving??

Originally Posted by code4pay

Ian your a wealth of information. Be great to have a resource of Australian timber and it uses. So much on the internet is based on northern hemisphere species. Maybe even a comparison so if they say oak then an australian timber with similar properties would be xyz?

There is already a fantastic resource of Australian Timber see http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/5138.htm
This is a magnificent book but as you will see it's not cheap and there are some good reasons for this.
Firstly it took a loot of work to put it together, and the Govt requires CSIRO to recoup a significant part of its costs from customers.

I got a copy for Xmas a few years ago and I have used it a fair bit since.

Originally Posted by DSEL74

...I have just cut down a bottle brush of some kind, how well would a green wood handle go?? Could I microwave a small enough piece?? Side note, what is the smallest useable dia of stick worth saving??

Dale - Bottle brush would be quite a good wood, I think. It was the favoured wood for sling-shot forks ("gings" where I grew up), though I don't suppose kids make such things any more - tubeless tyres have sort of killed it, not to mention political correctness. Anyway, to keep to the point, I have used BB for lathe tool handles and it is very good. Turns nicely, too. How small a piece is worth saving? How small a piece can you use?! The species I used seems to be ok with drying in the round, though that may have been a fluke. Of about 10 branches I cut (from a tree that needed a very 'short back & sides'), every one dried without a single split. However I didn't use it like that, I split it into quarters for turning.

Don't think it would be wise to use green wood for hammer haandles, unless you like your heads flying all over the shop. I'd try to dry them as much as possible, especially the bit that has to go in the eye. To speed things along, you could try this chairmakers' trick. The bodgers used green wood for the legs because it was a heck of a lot easier to turn on a pole lathe than dry wood. The legs were part-dried in the open, but before fitting to the seats, the dowel end was put in hot sand for a few hours to dry it out. I haven't tried it with tool handles, but I see no reason it shoudn't work....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by BobL

There is already a fantastic resource of Australian Timber see http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/5138.htm
This is a magnificent book but as you will see it's not cheap and there are some good reasons for this.
Firstly it took a loot of work to put it together, and the Govt requires CSIRO to recoup a significant part of its costs from customers.

I got a copy for Xmas a few years ago and I have used it a fair bit since.

Bob - I agree it's a terrific book, mine is the first edition & I've had it more than 20 years. It's been well-thumbed. However, many of the species that are useful to us small non-commercial users aren't covered, and of course, that's not its aim. I find the info is more for construction uses than craft, though it does mention if a wood is considered good for turning etc.

The Australiaan Woodworker has a loose-leaf book that has info on workability, etc., but it doesn't cover half as many species as the CSIRO book, and many of the ones it does are exotics.

I don't think any book could ever cover all the woods we woodies could find useful, or put in enough information to satisfy everyone. You wouldn't be able to lift it if it did! So you need to go to many different sources, depending what it is you want to know, & if the wood you are searching for isn't a commercial or common species, good luck!. It's surprising what is on the internet - many of our State governments have detailed information that is freely accessible, on commercial & even some non-commercial woods. Just googling with a few filters is often rewarding (& more often not), and it helps to include botanical names if you can, common names can lead you up the garden path & into the wilderness. And of course, don't overlook this forum, there is a whole section devoted to wood, where you can ask for info.

P'raps we should start a "Woodapedia" on this forum....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Dale - Bottle brush would be quite a good wood, I think. It was the favoured wood for sling-shot forks ("gings" where I grew up), though I don't suppose kids make such things any more - tubeless tyres have sort of killed it, not to mention political correctness...

Oh pa..leese Ian!

Ginger Megs might tweet his exploits now-a-days but the only thing political correctness has done to sling shot use is open it up to the girls.

Matt

I don't know about the rest of Oz but in vic slingshots are illegal weapons, bloody nanny state.

Hi Dale,

I've made hammer and mallet handles from English Ash, ( I had one growing in the back yard) it has a bit of spring to it, and works well. If you hunt around the old places that made wagon wheels they traditionally used hickory, I got a few old hickory wheel spokes from the overpriced restorers barn in Castlemaine. I think it's all gone now, but makes nice hammer handles.

I seem to recall that the wagon wheel maker at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat uses spotted gum..

So, if you want Australian Timber add +1 vote for spotted gum.

Ray

The WA Forest Products Commission Website has some good species information (mostly for WA species)

The do provide info about a few common East coast species.

The entry for Spotted Gum (http://www.fpc.wa.gov.au/content_mig...otted_gum.aspx) specifically identified as being used for tool handles

The uses are as heavy engineering construction and mining timbers, where shock resistance is important, house framing, flooring, tool handles, piles and poles, shipbuilding, agricultural machinery and plywood.

Originally Posted by Berlin

....Ginger Megs might tweet his exploits now-a-days but the only thing political correctness has done to sling shot use is open it up to the girls. ...

'Spose you're right,Matt. If 12 year olds are the same as we were, as I suspect they are, it's tubeless tyres that's to blame......

cheers,

[QUOTE=IanW;1803998

P'raps we should start a "Woodapedia" on this forum....

Cheers,[/QUOTE]

A wood species sub forum was recently started in the Timber section!
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f283


I recall assisting my cousins in the manufacture of hand made projectile devices as a young boy. Many a shrub and tyre donated parts in their creation. This culminated in a 3 person model constructed from a shoulder high tree fork. It was a dismal failure due the inability of attaching a stretchy enough sling to the fork. Probably a good thing.