Hickory is hard!

[bugbear]

Just started making an axe handle from 2 year old seasoned hickory.

Step 1 was to thickness down to 33mm from 37mm, on a 3x24 inch piece.

Wow, I discovered a few things, notably that fully seasoned hickory is hard and tenacious.

When taking any shaving of significant thickness it was essential to work at an angle
across the grain (which also meant I couldn't simply plane against a single stop).

My Record #05 did very little; a Preston jack slid very nicely for taking fine "face" shavings,
but my two scrubs (my converted razee and a European model) were very much the tools
of choice, performing about the same as each other.. Even they were set for a much thinner shaving than usual.

Any thing you've read about scrub planes being set "rank" is a lie!

Making the shaping cut with a large bow saw was also slow going, and it's more difficult
to cut smooth curves when there's no momentum in the cutting motion.

Now I know why Roy Underhill normally works this stuff green!

BugBear

 

[NazNomad]

I always use Hickory drumsticks and I haven't broken one yet.

 

[ED65]

I think hickory is like all wood and it's going to vary tremendously, a lot more than books suggest.

I've re-handled some hammers in the past few years and the new hickory handle that I fitted to one wasn't noticeably more difficult to work compared to the ash or oak (an Asian variety, not European) which I'd also used. But I did make sure when I bought that handle to select a blank that was all sapwood.

 

[mouppe]

I made a hickory axe handle a couple of months ago. I found a drawknife was very useful at removing material fast.

It's a very hard wood, and I did quite a lot of shaping with a rasp.

You can shape it when green but make sure it's dry- even over dried- when you wedge it to the head. Otherwise you can get a nasty shock when you swing the axe over your head!

 

[bugbear]

My mistake - it's 4 years old, drying indoors!

hornbeam-or-hickory-plank-s-needed-t63485.html?hilit=hickory

Here's the design I'm working to (the 2½Lb Kent pattern).

http://www.woodworkinfo.site88.net/axe_handles.html

BugBear

 

[whiskywill]

I always use Hickory drumsticks and I haven't broken one yet.

Hmmm! Using drumsticks as an axe handle is a new one on me. I would have thought they would be a bit small. :?

 

[NazNomad]

I always use Hickory drumsticks and I haven't broken one yet.

Hmmm! Using drumsticks as an axe handle is a new one on me. I would have thought they would be a bit small. :?

No, I use it to chop matchsticks.

 

[ED65]

I always use Hickory drumsticks and I haven't broken one yet.

Hmmm! Using drumsticks as an axe handle is a new one on me. I would have thought they would be a bit small. :?

Ba-dum tish.

 

[bugbear]

Finished!

Hickory may be tough and shock proof, but it's not very pretty.

BugBear

 

[John15]

Very nice indeed BB. How did you arrive at such an attractive shape?

John

 

[bugbear]

Very nice indeed BB. How did you arrive at such an attractive shape?

John

If you follow the link in my earlier post, you'll find lots of good info.

BugBear

 

[D_W]

Finished!

Hickory may be tough and shock proof, but it's not very pretty.

BugBear

Looks great to me. I may have missed it in the thread, but does hickory grow there?

Where I grew up, it was common (and we ate the nuts, despite them pain a pain in the **** to get the nut fruit out of them). I moved 200 miles west, and I haven't seen one in a while now.

Dad always hated them because they were full of boring beetles and a serious pain in the ane to split (we burned firewood and split by hand). At one point, they lined our driveway in one direction and took a lot of bug damaged and we downed them all and rented a splitter rather than split them by hand. I don't know if they ash more than other hardwoods, but he always complained about needing to clean ash out of the stove more often if burning it, too.

 

[bugbear]

I may have missed it in the thread, but does hickory grow there?

hornbeam-or-hickory-plank-s-needed-t63485.html?hilit=hickory

BugBear

 

[ED65]

Nicely shaped and smoothed BB.

Hickory may be tough and shock proof, but it's not very pretty.

I quite like plain woods for plain jobs if you know what I mean. I just used up a wh0re's chestnut branch for some file handles and as you probably know that's widely considered to be as bland as wood comes, but for a utilitarian item I think that's a good fit.

 

[D_W]

I may have missed it in the thread, but does hickory grow there?

hornbeam-or-hickory-plank-s-needed-t63485.html?hilit=hickory

BugBear

Bummer that it doesn't grow there. Not many people appreciate it here, though, either. The nuts that come off of it are a prospect for someone who has more time than money, I guess (which is how we lived when I was a kid). The wood would be appreciated more if it split easier with a maul.

In the late 1990s, I worked in a cabinet factory (in the middle of the housing boom here). At that time, they added hickory (with a clear finish) for reasons I don't know, but it sold fairly well given that it's not the most attractive wood in the world. That was in a factory owned by Fortune Brands, though, and nothing in there resembled what we consider woodworking except for two or three people who got to work in the repair area.

 

[bugbear]

I am currently making another axe handle from this stock.

Despite now having a stove top smoker, I swept up the [hickory, obviously] saw dust from the bench top and dumped it in the bin.

Profanities ensued after a suitable pause.

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

True Hickories and Pecan Hickories (the fruit bearing kind) sold as virtually the same species though there are some botanical differences they're so close to each other in terms of woodworking properties as to be essentially indistinguishable:

http://www.hardwoodinfo.com/articles/view/pro/24/313

 

[bugbear]

True Hickories and Pecan Hickories (the fruit bearing kind) sold as virtually the same species though there are some botanical differences they're so close to each other in terms of woodworking properties as to be essentially indistinguishable:

http://www.hardwoodinfo.com/articles/view/pro/24/313

Yes - they are indeed essentially indistinguishable.

They're BOTH nigh unobtainable in the UK

BugBear

 

[Trafalgar]

I have a huge pecan tree in my backyard that I'm going to cut down soon. It doesn't produce paper shell pecans, the kind that are most commonly eaten and are easier to crack. Puts out a lot of shade but hard to get grass to grow under it. Needs to go. Maybe it's time to invest in a chainsaw mill!

I say I'm going to do it, but that's not true. I'd have to have a tree service do it but leave me the butt log to saw up. My neighbor has an oak tree in their backyard that a botanist from the university we all live next to told her had to be one of the oldest and largest in Shelby County (where Memphis is located). She received three bids to have it taken down and the cheapest one was $15,000 and it from a halfway shady operator she said. Reputable companies wanted $25K or so.

Tree business, anyone?

 

[bugbear]

I remembered to keep the sawdust from the "cheek" rip cuts, which was probably more than the profiling cuts made with the turning saw.

Smoked potatoes in jackets here we come!

BugBear