IIth

[MaxTheKnife]

Cool boo! I just found a good red oak handle laying on the ground! It was left there by some surveyors a few months ago. They just whacked down a small stand of oaks and left them lay (Of course, they're good and dry so that's a plus). Man, that steams me. On my land too. There was almost a butt whoopin over those boys and their crappy survey methods.

Anyway, I'll have lots of handle material to choose from by the time I get through. Now if I could just settle on the style of hawk head I want to forge. I'm thinking about a high carbon railroad spike hawk head. In fact, I'll probably forge one of those first just for practice. I still need the dimensions for a hawk eye drift and a description for a splitting chisel. I'd like to get those forged up this evening while I have a fire going. Any help there boo?

[jdlange]

Hey Guys,

On the topic of drying wood. I used to make many a walking stick and I used a method I learned from a fellow who had been doin it a long time. Basically, you just cook it dry, in an oven, about 350 degrees, you will be able to see steam coming out of the ends of the branch, cook it until it doesnt steam anymore, if one end stops before the other then just let the end that stopped steaming hang out of the oven until the other end stops as well. When you take it out, tap the end on the floor, if you have a tile floor you should be able to tell if it is done by the dry "crack" it makes when it smacks the tile. If it doesnt give a dry crack when it hits the tile then it is not yet dry. I used this for making walking sticks out of a number of different kinds of wood and it always worked well and is easy. I have no experience using this method to dry wood for handles but my walking sticks always held up pretty well.

[beast]

Chris
thanks my name is david sylvester. i found the trouble my work e-mail won't send to a hot mail address i'll send one from home this weekend.

[Sweany]

Max, the sprouts or branches from the "cut tree" has name that escapes me right now. copice, copiceing????

Anyhow it was done on purpose to promote growth for use in handles, baskets,etc,etc,etc,

Back when men were men and men didn't have Walmart. hehe

[Chuck Burrows]

Max-
I took one of the commercial hickory handles I have on hand and drew around the end and then did a side drawing. You should be able to figure out the tapers from these.


Forcing out the sap from wood with water or steam (boiling) works great. Sap dissipates at an irregular rate so the chance of cracking or checking is increased. Water escapes faster and at a more regular rate. Just make sure you remove the bark first. Hardwood veneer mills soak ther logs and then steam them to remove all sap possible before slicing them up into 1/64" thick layers. Sap causes them problems as it mucks up the blades and then it won't slice cleanly. Used to work in a furniture shop and we'd get an entire tree (walnut and/and or red oak mainly) that was all sliced up. It was pretty neat to peel a whole tree aprt slice by slice.

The best time of year to cut wood is in the winter as there is very little sap in the wood so therfore it is almost completely dry to begin with. Best way to cure winter cut is to leave it long as suggested and leave the bark on, but slice off narrow (1/4" to 1/2") strips of bark the full length at the 4 compass points (you can do 2 or 3 if it's pretty small in diameter). This lets the sap escape along the sides as well as the ends. I like to hang them to dry and the attic is great, but outside in the shade where you get good air flow works too when it's warm anyway.

Max if you look back at the images I posted earlier one of them shows the tool for starting the eye.

[Chuck Burrows]

Sweany's right the although the correct spelling is coppice (I had to look it up to make sure ).

Maples. walnuts, oak, lots of good trees do this. Up here in the Rockies about all we have for hardwoods are cottonwood, willows of various sorts, and some vine maple up high. Coppices are what I like to use for spear shafts too.

On a side note I recently read that ball headed clubs were often made from saplings that grew out of the side of creek and river banks. The root wad made the head and the growth coming out the side and then curving up to the sun made the perfect haft. I've seen a lot of trees do exactly that so it sure makes sense.

Old timers used what grew naturally for a lot of stuff rather than cutting to shape. The cruck frame houses are a good example.

[MaxTheKnife]

Thanks for the drawing Wild Rose. Now I can see why most folks just buy the drifts. Maybe I'll just trade in some of my mountain of aluminum beer and pop cans at the local recycling plant and order me one of those drifts At least the first one anyway. But I'm still kicking around an idea for forging one. As best I could figure, the head on that drift will have to be about 1" X 1 1/2" at the top according to your drawing. And then just a slow taper down to whatever it works out to for about a foot of length. Is that right? Are those drifts about a foot long? I have an idea about how to go about forming the angle or bevel on one side too. I have a few old axe heads laying in my scrap pile. I use them for making digging tools for this rocky soil. I can never keep them around because someone always talks me out of them.

Anyway, I can cut one of those axe heads in half so the edge is on one side and the flat part is on the other side. The blade side of the eye has that tapered/angled look. I should be able to clamp that split axe head into my post vice and hammer my stock into it to form it. Wouldn't you think? It don't really sound fun but I'm just ornrey enough to try it. Even if it fails I can still use the blade side of the axe head to make one of my digging tools so it won't be a total loss. Unless I bust it that is. All these ideas and so little time. I was going to start fiddling with that hawk head today but I'm right in the middle of a few projects that are long overdue. Jim and Leo know what I'm talking about. He he. Speaking of that, break time is over!

[Chuck Burrows]

9-12" ought to do it. I think your idea about the axe should work-sounds reasonable anyway and hey think outside the box!

[Raymond Richard]

Max, If your going to do a forge welded hawk I wouldn't even sweat not having a drift. Just put something round where the eye goes and crimp it in a vice. If your going solid bar then there nice to have but you could always use a round drift or make one out of flat stock in the shape of a long D. The hawk drift is nice to have if you using factory made handles.

[MaxTheKnife]

Ray, I really like the idea of a forge welded hawk. I may even use some of my chainsaw chain damascus as the cutting edge if I can work it out. I was digging around in the smithy the other day and found a billet that I'd forged up a while back and then forgot. It needs a little more forge welding itself so it's the perfect candidate. And for the outside jacket I'm thinking about some old wrought wagon wheel rim I've got laying around. Shouldn't be much trouble forge welding those two together as far as I can figure. That would make it a chainsaw hawk.

I looked at that page full of hawks someone posted earlier and I really like the saxon style hawk. That's my goal for the style. Looks like the most useful design I've seen so far. Great for shaving with or most camp chores. Anyway, I'll probably relax about a drift for now. This weekend I'm going to take a little time off and see what I can do with that wheel rim and chainsaw steel. I've got some 1" steel pipe to use for the bending jig so I'm all set. Sheesh, I've got so many different types and forms of steel and iron I shouldn't have any trouble forge welding something together. I'm definately pumped about it, that's for sure.