How to Rehandle an Axe - Page Two

Last Updated on Monday, 21 September 2009 16:15 Written by Robin Wood Tuesday, 08 September 2009 15:35

The handle was fairly dry wood when I roughed it out and has had 3 or 4 days near the fire so is now dry enough to fit it.

First thing is to put the head on the end and draw carefully round the inside. The new line is pencil, the red line was drawn before it dried. Notice how it shrinks mostly around the tangential rings.



Hew off sides again starting by making a rectangle.



Then take the corners off.



Now offer it up to the head to see where you need to trim. Hopefully it is just a question of keeping cutting off the high points.



I am trimming with the knife by this stage, all the custs start 2-3" from the end where the head will start.



Now it's time for a trial fit, pop the head on top and give it a few gentle bumps on a block to see how far it goes on.



It will probably be pretty well stuck on there now, I split out a small piece of wood which easily fits inside the eye, put it into the eye and bump it on the block to take the head off.



The dirty bits show where it was rubbing on the eye, leave the bits which didn't touch alone, shave the areas that did touch particularly the area where the head stopped going on.



Trial fit again and check the alignment by looking down the edge towards the foot of the handle. For a neutral axe the edge should line up with the centre of the handle. This one is good as a hewing axe for a right hander so I shall leave it as it is. If I wanted to make it more central I would shave a little from the area where my thumb is which would alter the alignment as it went further on.