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AN ADDICTION TO HANDLES It's tough to admit you are ADDICTED TO MAKING HANDLES. I go looking for tools that need handles. I am especially fond of turning handles, but I also like making hammer handles with my spokeshave. And I wonder who could be responsible for this, certainly I must have caught the bug somewhere (Jim...Scott). When I got my lathe (yes, it's demon powered) one of my first projects was to make matching handles for all my files. Having had a drawer full of files with crap handles for years, I had always thought I'd like to have a set of handles, all the same, all wooden. Well, I did it only to find it wasn't a good idea...but they still looked better than ever before. White oak with copper ferrules and a cocobolo button on top.
Before the cocobolo buttons were added...
The total of tanged files I had at the time...HeHeHeHe A friend asked me to handle some of his files with a similar handle
Then I went on a binge of acquiring files to try new handle types and woods, ah yes all the lovely woods...
The last four are scrapers... Then I found some chisels that needed handles...
I really like the look of cocobolo and copper together...but have since learned it's brittle and that it should only be used on a paring chisel that will never see a mallet up close.
Then I discovered making tools...so I could make handles for them.
Hollowing scrapers made from Allen wrenches with white oak handles, and copper ferrules. (Used to hollow Christmas ornaments thru a 3/4" hole.) ) These are tools to shape ferrules, cherry on top and white oak (unfinished) on bottom. Made from 01 steel copying a tool designed and made by Jim Thompson.
Okay so you've seen enough white oak...one more and we'll move on.
An unfinished handle for a Disston and Sons D7...this is a piece of firewood (quarter-sawn white oak). This is my first saw handle and I'm going real slow with it. Based on the shape of a D7 handle but thinner for my hand with somewhat stylized horns. I need to learn to chip carve in order to put the vine and leaf carving on it. I also happened to pull another piece of firewood out of the pile at the same time and had originally started a handle from it...I'll use this one later.
This is Osage Orange... Some more turned handles...this is a Winchester chisel with a Bloodwood handle...appropriate don't you think? And a pen I made to match.
I had lots of bench chisels of unknown pedigree, that needed handles, but I had no use for them, So I made a couple of skew chisels and they needed to be handled...Plus the first gouge I acquired, and the Winnie again.
Lets see left to right Bloodwood, Canary, Cypress and Zebrawood. I decided that for my gouges I would use Zebrawood and similar but not identical handles.
The gouges are mostly Greenlee and it's a slowly growing selection. And my first couple of hammer handles I have made...with a spokeshave. An unknown wood on the left and what I think is a hard Maple from a "Silver Leaf" Maple
This is my first handle for a Perfect Handle type tool, It was a rusty handless mess when I got it. The wood is Honduran Rosewood with brass rivets.
I made this little saw in order to make an open type saw handle, its design is a little overboard but is comfortable. The blade is made from a piece of old handsaw blade, it was made as a fake old saw and was never intended for use...unless I re-file the teeth and...
There are other handles I've made in my homemade tools page but I will let you look there for them and not repeat them here. And one more saw handle, this one I only shaped, I received it as a blank cut handle for my Small Tenon saw, which I purchased as a kit from Mike Wenzloff and Sons. The wood is CongoTeak and the handle pattern is Harvey Pease (sp).
Roy Griggs |
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