I’ve seen a few videos of someone making a new handle for an axe, so when I found this hatchet head, I thought I would give it a try.
I’ve had some firewood stacked up and I thought it would be fun to make something out of a piece. I found one that had a good shape to it and started sanding it down. I don’t have a band saw (yet), so I shaped the whole handle on a belt sander. I don’t know what type of wood it is, but this picture shows a similar piece to what I started with. I like how the shape of it turned out.
To secure the head, I needed a wedge. I found a chunk from a larger log and sanded it down into a wedge. Then I sawed a slot in the end of the handle, put the head on and drove the wedge in. I actually trimmed the handle before putting the wedge in so I wasn’t prying the handle apart so much. I also spread some Titebond II on the wedge before driving it into the handle.
Everything trimmed up and looking good.
I noticed a few holes in the wood after I finished shaping the handle, so I tried filling them in with some wood glue and sawdust. It didn’t turn out as well as I hoped.
After the glue dried, I sanded everything down with a finer grit paper and coated it with a Honey Oak polyurethane. I like the way it turned out.
I call this a mini axe because the handle is long enough to hold with two hands. I found myself using both hands to split through logs just like I would with normal axe.
Unfortunately, the handle is wider than the axe head and I took a chunk out the handle while splitting logs. I’ll sand that down and recoat the area. Maybe the whole neck needs to be thinner.
Now, to make a sheath…