Re-handling a Hatchet

I found this old Plumb hatchet at a garage sale a few years ago.  Read the end of this post for more information on Plumb.  The handle on the hatchet was painted yellow when I bought it.  I had scraped the paint off and oiled it, and it was so smooth and comfortable.  I mean baby's butt smooth!

Plumb hatchet

Logo

Boy Scout logo on other side

I don't use a hatchet much, but recently I noticed that the head was not quite secure on the handle. Looking more closely, there were three nails and a screw-in wedge shoring up the original wooden wedge.

Not the greatest job of wedging

That screw head seen in the previous pic is actually a screw-in wedge

Time to make a new handle.  I don't remember how I got it, but I've had an old ax handle for years.  It says Genuine American Hickory and it feels strong and dense, so I thought I'd try making a new hatchet handle from it.

Old handle next to new handle material

Overlaying to get idea of sizing

Thickness comparison

I would have thought a hatchet head's eye should be wider at the top than at the bottom.  But the width was about 1/16" less at the top.

Just shy of 11/16" at bottom

About 5/8" wide at top

Before shaping the top of the new handle, I placed the hatchet head on the end grain and drew the shape of the eye.  This gave me something to rough out to.  Then it was a few dozen iterations of tapping the head onto the handle, pulling it off, and removing material where indicated by marks left by the eye.

Tap the head on, then pull it off

The ridge and marks from the inside of  the eye indicate where to remove material

Successive marks showing the progress with each iteration

Eventually I got it seated, but had to do some chisel work on the shoulder to match the curvature of the base of the head.  Next was to cut a kerf in the top of the handle.

Sawed down about 2/3 to 3/4 the height of the eye

Shaping was done by holding the old handle to the new and sketching a shape.  Front and back of the handle were shaped first using drawknife, spokeshave and rasps.  The sides (thickness dimension) were done later. There is a little "horn" at the bottom of the handle that I didn't have enough width of material for.  So I glued on a piece and shaped it when the glue had dried.

Arrow shows the "horn"

Glued on some extra material

Then shaped it like the original (still some extra length on new handle)

When I was happy enough with the shape, scrapers and sandpaper gave it a nice smooth feel.  Then it was the moment I had been worrying about: wedging the handle.

First cut the excess above the ax head to about 1/4"

I had researched what wood people use for the wedge and remarkably poplar is commonly sold for this purpose.  I would think it would get destroyed by a metal hammer while being banged home.  No way was I using poplar!  I also read some advise not to use oak or other open-pore wood, as the pores might crush over time and may loosen the wedge.  I ended up using maple, a hard, close-grained wood.  I had not seen anybody do this or recommend this, but I made the wedge a little thinner at the front than the back to more closely match the shape of the eye.

Starting to hammer in the wedge

Worried about breaking the wedge, I clamped blocks to either side while tapping it in

The wedge didn't go in as far as I had hoped.  When it wouldn't go any further, it started breaking and I cut it off there.  I then trimmed the excess sticking out of the ax head to about 1/8" protruding and pounded in a metal wedge that I found somewhere.

Metal wedge tapped in and cut off flush

All the research I did on these metal wedges indicated that they would be tapped below the surface of the wood.  But my wedge was quite fat and couldn't go that far in, so I had to cut off the excess and file and sand it smooth.  While I was pounding the metal wedge in, I had the butt end of the handle on the concrete floor.  Even though I had extra material to be cut off later, I damaged some keeper material.

Arrgh!  And this is after cutting away the extra length.

I glued the cracks and managed to clamp it in the vise (which was no small feat due to the shape of the handle and location of the crack.  After some shaping it looks fine.

Completed shape

The original handle had some initials on the butt end - former owner perhaps - so I added mine to the new handle.

Original handle

New one

Finally, I gave the new handle some BLO and sharpened the tool and I think it'll be ready for many years of use.

Glamour shot #1

Glamour shot #2

The Plumb Co. (originally Yerkes and Plumb) was founded by Fayette R. Plumb around the 1870's in Philadelphia, initially with Jonathan Yerkes.  By the late 1880's, Yerkes retired and the company was fully Plumb's.  For (a lot!) more information about the Plumb Co., check out this site.