A new axe handle for a mate

Seeing as Sean Rofe was staying here for a week and he needed a new handle for his hatchet we decided to get stuck into the workshop and make one from scratch for him.

First up we needed some good solid dry timber, there was some Kanuka (tea tree) up the back that I had felled about 4 years ago which was only rain wet so a length was cut off and dragged down to the quad, then the workshop.

One side was planed flat on the bench planer and then it was cut down to a 2" plank on the table saw:

Able to see where we were now, I traced an outline of the handle on my forest axe.............

...........and then handed it over to Sean to continue on with saws, chisels and spoke planes.
He needed a little help but soon got the hang of things and shaped it out real nice:

Meanwhile I made a wooden wedge and then got onto making a steel wedge out of a piece of an old file:

Once the head was fitted, the wedges were hammered in....................

...........and then sanded flat with a flap disc:

A quick polish and a decent sharpen:

And the results speak for themselves:

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Tohunga Comment by Te Hopo on January 15, 2011 at 18:51: Cheers for that mate, let us know how you get on if you go for it.

Shrafter Comment by Oshadhi Maha Thantrige on January 15, 2011 at 16:36: This is a helpful post. Out on a tramp in September, I found a 2 1/12 pound axe head. All it needs is a re- handling.

Tohunga Comment by Te Hopo on December 29, 2010 at 8:51: Gidday Zakk, I would love to see a pic of your work!
Good on you for giving it a go and don't worry about the pine.
It'll do the job for a while and it's already served the purpose of showing you what needs doing with an easy to find and carve bit of scrap wood.
I bet now your working on a piece of hardwood your not finding it too much more difficult. =D

Newbie Comment by zakk tustin on December 29, 2010 at 6:07: i made a handle about 2 months ago. its made out of pine, which i know by now you think its shit but its a good strong sturdy handle which holds up nicely. plus the us army axe engineers belt axes ( about the size of a camp axe) where made out of pine wood. any way it was a scrape bit of wood form a building site. i split it with a rip saw with the wood in my engineers vice on the flow (sadly no work shop as i live in a flat) then cut the out line of it out with a jig saw then shaped it with a spoke shave and sandpaper. ill post a pic latter. I'm staring a larger one but this time with hard wood. sorry to hijack the blog. you did a awesome job on the handle! and i like the idea of the home made wedge. coolest thing about it was you paid nothing for it. thumbs up mate top job. and cool work shop!!

Shrafter Comment by Scott Hamilton on November 15, 2010 at 9:29: Sweet, nice job.

Tohunga Comment by Te Hopo on November 14, 2010 at 23:50: Thanks mate, the wood handle feels better than the original fiberglass handle and now that Sean knows how to go about it, he could easily replace it if he breaks it.