When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?

sbnjhfty wrote:
When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?

I guess no, because the innermost core (pith and heartwood)is weaker,
than the outermost layers. Furthermore, I don't think you could find
saplings straight enough so that having a similar diameter to a handle
that would suffice.

Think of turning the trunk of your tree into dimensional lumber with
your bandsaw or adze. Then cutting it into "long french fries" which you
could smoothe with your spokeshave. You had better season the wood
before you get that far though... Disclaimer: I've never done any of
this sort of work.

Bill

"sbnjhfty" wrote in message
...
When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?


That is absolutely the way that garden and agricultural tools were always
made, out of round wood just cut at the right thickness and length. Strength
is probably better than wood which has been sawn to size because the grain
will go straight down the piece.

Tim W

In article ,
sbnjhfty wrote:

When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?

No, but it's probably usable.

The traditional method is not to simply use such a sapling, though I'm
sure the same folks that repair their cars with duct-tape now did that
then. It's a quick expedient if you don't have the right thing on hand,
but it's more likely to break in use.

However, the good handles are not _sawn_ from the tree - they are split
(riven) from the tree. A froe is the tool of choice, but you can use
wedges. Spit into equal halves or the split will tend to run out the
side of the blank on the light side. Thus, split in half, split the
halves into quarters, and if those are too big split them into eighths
(which you will normally then want to split the point off of if looking
for handle stock.) A straight log is obviously helpful. Logs that
quarter into handle-stock are easy to find in trees that need to be
thinned if lumber is desired from the stand, or a patch of handle-sized
trees can be maintained, if you have enough need for them.

After that, attack with drawknife and spokeshave, and then install on
rake/hoe/etc. with proper grain orientation. A handy clamp for handles
and other long round work can be made form a pair of pegs set into a
post - pressure on the work holds it in place.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

On Jan 2, 1:40*pm, Ecnerwal
wrote:
In article ,

*sbnjhfty wrote:
When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... *is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?

No, but it's probably usable.

The traditional method is not to simply use such a sapling, though I'm
sure the same folks that repair their cars with duct-tape now did that
then. It's a quick expedient if you don't have the right thing on hand,
but it's more likely to break in use.

However, the good handles are not _sawn_ from the tree - they are split
(riven) from the tree. A froe is the tool of choice, but you can use
wedges. Spit into equal halves or the split will tend to run out the
side of the blank on the light side. Thus, split in half, split the
halves into quarters, and if those are too big split them into eighths
(which you will normally then want to split the point off of if looking
for handle stock.) A straight log is obviously helpful. Logs that
quarter into handle-stock are easy to find in trees that need to be
thinned if lumber is desired from the stand, or a patch of handle-sized
trees can be maintained, if you have enough need for them.

Some infroemation.
http://stonehead.wordpress.com/2006/...plitting-wood/

R

Just a point:
All ash trees are not created equal.
You want white ash for handles and for stair rails, not black ash.
Black ash is much a much weaker wood. About the only thing I know of to
use it for is splits for baskets. Never tried to use green ash for
anything.
We have a lot of black ash around here. Only the occasional white
ash. Wish it was the other way around.

Pete Stanaitis
-------------------

sbnjhfty wrote:

When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?

"sbnjhfty" wrote in message
...
When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?


William Morris, Victorian designer craftsman and visionary socialist wrote a
utopian fantasy of a man who falls asleep in the late 19th Century and wakes
up in the early 21st. The people he meets tell him about the terrible
de-skilling which took place as a result of over industrialisation [quote]

....by that time it was as much as-or rather, more than-a man could do to fix
an ash pole to a rake by handiwork; so that it would take a machine worth a
thousand pounds, a group of workmen, and half a day's travelling, to do five
shillings' worth of work. [end quote]

It's happened.

Tim W

...by that time it was as much as-or rather, more than-a man could do to fix
an ash pole to a rake by handiwork; so that it would take a machine worth a
thousand pounds, a group of workmen, and half a day's travelling, to do five
shillings' worth of work. [end quote]

It's happened.

Tim W

I hate it when I have trouble with my ash pole but I would dred the
day a a group of workmen would be involved with it.

On Tue, 4 Jan 2011 15:32:51 -0800 (PST), "SonomaProducts.com"
wrote:


...by that time it was as much as-or rather, more than-a man could do to fix
an ash pole to a rake by handiwork; so that it would take a machine worth a
thousand pounds, a group of workmen, and half a day's travelling, to do five
shillings' worth of work. [end quote]

It's happened.

Tim W

I hate it when I have trouble with my ash pole but I would dred the
day a a group of workmen would be involved with it.

It's an ash pole, you're doing something wrong.

"Ecnerwal" wrote in message
...
In article ,
sbnjhfty wrote:

When you make a handle for a tool such as a garden hoe and choose
ash... is the strength of a sapling close the diameter required
similar to the strength of a blank cut from a mature tree?

No, but it's probably usable.

The traditional method is not to simply use such a sapling, though I'm
sure the same folks that repair their cars with duct-tape now did that
then. It's a quick expedient if you don't have the right thing on hand,
but it's more likely to break in use.

However, the good handles are not _sawn_ from the tree - they are split
(riven) from the tree.

[..]

You are sort of right. Yes, the strongest tool handles are made that way,
but it is only necessary to make a handle like that for a hammer or an axe,
something which takes a lot of punishment. A hoe, a rake, a scythe, a fork,
a shovel you would just cut a pole, and if it breaks you cut another.

Not so much saplings really either. Woodlands would be managed by constant
cutting of branches either as 'coppicing' at ground level or 'pollarding'
higher up so that you grew a supply of timber which you could cut when it
reached the required dimension. You might want switches for basket work,
faggots for the oven, poles for fences different timbers for rafters, beams,
studs and joists, plaster laths, stakes, thatchers ties, tool handles, brush
wood, logs, whatever and none of it would be sawn unless it was necessary.

Tim w