Preferred wood for tool handles

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jleiwig

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What are some preferred woods for tool handles. I'm thinking of either picking up some tiger maple or some walnut tomorrow from my wood guy.
 
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AVOID burls, cross cut, and bias cut woods. You want a nice, straight grained piece of wood that offers plenty of strength and structural integrity. Otherwise, the handle could snap off in your hand while attempting to use the tool.
 
Since I don't feel the need to have extra fancy handles on my turing tools, I use Ash. While it may be a bit boring, it's a nice straight grained wood that's known for its strength. I figure if it works okay for a splitting maul, it should work well for my turing tools.

Jim Smith
 
BobBurt said:
I'm gunna make one out of Amboyna in the next couple of days. I picked up a good chunk of Amboyna out of the dollar bin at the local wood place. I think they placed it in the wrong bin.....
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Bob, let me know where your DOLLAR $TORE is. I want some from this 'bin'.:biggrin:
 
I just got some persimmon delivered yesterday (from Gary Max) to make some handles with. It supposedly turns very easy but is as strong as steel!..It is the wood that golf clubs were made of when woods were truly wood.
 
I made a nice one out of birdseye maple for my hollowing tool. I have others made out of redheart, and some from hard maple and canary wood. I have about 3 more I need to make, and just picked up some lignum (? I think - it has the greenish tint to it?) at the local woodcraft in the manager's special bin ($2 ea) that will make some nice handles.
 
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I feel perfectly free to use burls, gnarls, etc for handles --- and if I do I drill full length and add a 7/16 or larger steel rod up the handle. The rod with some epoxy seems to stabalize the pretty wood.

P.S. The Hop Hornbeam -- East Coast Ironwood -- is a super handle wood. Lie Nielson uses it on the chisel handles they sell.
 
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I would love to shop at these stores with dollar and 2 dollar bins. My woodcraft wants something like 26 bucks for a 2x2x24 of maple, not even curly!
 
Any straight grain hard wood will work.

I have used maple, ash, Brazilian cherry - nice and heavy, cherry, and walnut.

Oh, I have also used black iron pipe with compression fittings!
 
Jim Smith said:
Since I don't feel the need to have extra fancy handles on my turing tools, I use Ash. While it may be a bit boring, it's a nice straight grained wood that's known for its strength. I figure if it works okay for a splitting maul, it should work well for my turing tools.

Jim Smith
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I use Ash for mine, you can dye the wood with food coloring so you can tell which tool is which, Some guys laminate different wood and have some beautiful handles, I see it as a accident waiting to happen, also use a good heavy ferrule, that's the first place excessive force is placed on the handle. JMHO
 
I tend to use black cherry, cause I have a ton of it on hand. I do find that I prefer a closed grain wood like cherry to a open grained one like oak or ash or mahogany. That's because I like to use either a light coat of straight linseed oil, then buff, or just buff with plenty of compound and let the wax coat the wood. That way the wood can "breathe" a little bit, and pick up a nice hand oil patina over time. I did a CA finish on a handle a while back, and MM'd it to a high shine. It looked pretty, but I found That I was stopping to wipe my hands a lot more as the slick impermeable finish makes a little bit of palm perspiration a lot more noticeable. Same thing on wooden block plane bodies BTW, sand to 800 or 1200 and either buff, or just let it pick up hand oil and develop a nice patina over time.
 
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