'Bury the hatchet' ..and ruin your temper!

[Samon]

Just watched this.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfZsiONM1Vk



An old expression and practice of course, but I for one, after watching it, am not conviced. Even without file testing, I think it's safe to say the temper is borked.

Am I the only one who thinks this??

I assumed it was done with a single bit axe, with the blade burried deep in wet soil with a small fire at either end of the eye or embers you blow on top of the remaining handle. Not a frigging bonfire on top!

Please chip in..

 

[humdrum_hostage]

I don't known the first thing about tempering but if you haven't got the tools to remove the old handle then you haven't got the tools to hammer the wedges in the new handle..... as he showed there because he put them in his Billy tin and walked off. Just take it home and drill it out later?

 

[santaman2000]

Burning out the old handle was standard practice on the farm and among loggers.

 

[David LaFerney]

I suspect that some axes aren't hardened by quenching and tempering but normalized instead - heated to critical temp then air cooled. This gives a very high degree of general toughness and probably appropriate edge properties for an axe - depending on the steel of course. But in that case burning out the handle wouldn't dammage the heat treat. Just a guess though.

 

[OldJimbo]

Hickory and ash are both straight grained easily split woods. so tapping a knife into the back of the broken handle will open splits into which wooden wedges can be driven to bend and break excess wood at the eye. It's trivial! Once the handle material left is same width as eye, simple tap forward and it'll pop out like nothing. And that's a method I've used with success, not something I read in an old book.
It's possible to burn out the wood without bothering the temper, if the soil on the blade(s) is kept wet, but I think I'd die of shame if I was seen doing it that, instead of knowing the proper method. I'm surprised to see Wranglestar using the burning method.

 

[Samon]

Seeing him do it and cooking over the same fire was just.. painfull.

Seems like people watch his videos and consider him the 'axe guy' of youtube, which is pretty funny. But despite the mild entertainment, this video and the 9 minute long romanticised one of him making one hole in some flat bar steel have just been the cherry on the top.

He's just a guy with money, land and tools beyond his skill level, and is not an expert.

 

[OldJimbo]

So my friend Steve went up into the mountains in Colorado with some newly handled axes to try and this was the result of having improperly seasoned wood in freezing conditions. It does illustrate just how easily hickory splits for those who haven't tried spitting any:

The eye in an axe head is wasp waisted with the bigger opening up front for wedging which pushes the axe head back on the handle and gives a secure fit with the slope of the back opening of eye locking onto a slope on the handle. So the handle material must always be forced out from back to front. despite the middle of the eye being narrowest, I've never had any problems pushing out wood from eye with a piece of wood as a drift - so trimming excess wood to just the size of the back of the eye works.

and is not an expert.

None of us are born on the job, and if a person hasn't tried the splitting trick, then it might not be obvious. Anyone with old sections of axe handle might want to experiment with how fast you can shape the eye area of a handle by cutting in from the side with a saw then splitting down to the saw cut. It's a very fast method of fitting an oversized handle with minimal rasping to get the final taper to the front, and even that can be done by whittling and scraping with a knife.
I remember when I got really interested in axes and pronounced on a forum somewhere that figuring out axes shouldn't take long since an axe is just a wedge on a lever. I think was a couple of decades and a LOT of axes ago, and I'm still learning new stuff. Steve Acker learned his lesson and put it up to inform others because in the old days - even my old days, improperly seasoned axe handles were very uncommon not common as now.
http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/coloradoaxetests.html

 

[FGYT]

yes but you need to pack the edges with lots of Damp clay right up to teh Eye and large mass to keep cool and wck the heat as it moves thro the metal
definitely not how he did it

 

[OldJimbo]

yes but you need to pack the edges with lots of Damp clay right up to teh Eye and large mass to keep cool and wck the heat as it moves thro the metal
definitely not how he did it

Best not to use clay because an axe head is a big chunk of metal and heated enough to burn out a handle, will dry out the layer of clay near to the metal. Adding water to the outer layer of clay will not penetrate to that near metal due to lack of permeability of clay. Some clays are good insulators when dry and so will add to the problem. Silt, sand or earth which are more permeable are a better alternative.
Back in the day I would sometimes have to buy a job lot of old axe heads just to get a head I wanted, and so could try something like burning out the handle on a junker to see if it was possible, and just how to do it - rather than doing things easily by using a saw on the handle near the head, or splitting out excess wood. I guess I learned a bit and I wanted to investigate all the lore of axes. I mention that because otherwise saying I know something about burning out handles is like when Chong says "It hurts - I know!" in their movie, "Things Are Tough All Over" and I'd expect the same incredulous and horrified look.

 

[British Red]

Since I wasn't there, I have no way of being certain if he harmed the Temper or not. I may try it one day and find out myself of. I find that's usually the best way.

In general I like the guys videos. He is out there, living the life and doing things. His videos are articulate and well made. There's a few I don't like, so I don't watch those. On balance though, I like people who produce well made interesting content.

 

[santaman2000]

Burning out the old handles wasn't something I "read in a book" either. it was just what everybody did. It was the right way to do it. Did it hurt the temper? No idea; we never gave things like temper a thought to be honest. An axe was a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less. The axes always still did just fine afterwards.

Now-a-days I drill an old axe handle out because it's easier: burning it out requires building a fire and waiting until after the axe head cools back down whereas drilling takes a few minutes (now that we have power drills)

 

[OldJimbo]

I think we're going to have to choose to disagree about burning out handles being the right way to do things because checking the temper was precisely why I tried it. While it can be done without affecting the blade, I wondered lots about the effect on the metal around the eye, and for that reason I simply couldn't use the burning method on an axe I have to trust.

 

[Samon]

Burning out the old handles wasn't something I "read in a book" either. it was just what everybody did. It was the right way to do it. Did it hurt the temper? No idea; we never gave things like temper a thought to be honest. An axe was a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less. The axes always still did just fine afterwards.

Now-a-days I drill an old axe handle out because it's easier: burning it out requires building a fire and waiting until after the axe head cools back down whereas drilling takes a few minutes (now that we have power drills)

Yeah..a tool that needs to function at its best so the job can be done effeciently and safely.

Ballsing up the temper because it's a common thing to do is so far from a reasonable explanation, it borderlines stupidity.

Plain and simple, youtube guy wrecked a perfectly good axe, like a royal goober! The degree of 'wrecked' may be debatable, but the sooner he gets it sent to someone who knows what they're doing and can fix it, the better. I'm suprised he didn't get bullied online more..

as mentioned above, straight grained wood will split in the eye enough to be punched out. If he's got the tools to fabricate a new handle around his axe/camp/tea fire, he's mostly liekly got enough to do the job right.

The hipster glasses annoy me too, but I'd rather wear them for a week than ever be known as the guy who sets camp fires on top of axes.

 

[santaman2000]

Yeah..a tool that needs to function at its best so the job can be done effeciently and safely.

Ballsing up the temper because it's a common thing to do is so far from a reasonable explanation, it borderlines stupidity.......

It was the common way to do it among folks who used and depended on their axes every day: farmers and loggers. Not hobbyists. They only had a vague awareness of something called a computer (much less the internet) only the first generation before me grew up (partially) with electricity. They didn't read much (probably around a third of them didn't even know how to read) but they did swing an axe for a good portion of every day. I'll take their knowledge over the internet any day.

An axes real job for them was/is a simple one: chop and split.

 

[mrcharly]

It may have been commonly done (burning out), but back when I was responsible for chopping wood for the kitchen cooker I broke plenty of axe handles. Always got the remnants out by drilling, sometimes with a power drill, sometimes with a hand drill. Just needed to drill out the wedge. So I dunno why on earth someone would burn a handle out unless they didn't have access to any other tools.

 

[MongooseDownUnder]

I guess after burning the handle out, it would be really easy to sharpen.

 

[Jared]

I think people have cut and split wood longer than they have understood the metallurgy of steel.

Is it ideal practice? No. Has he 'wrecked' the axe head? No.

I think all that differs is how often you have to sharpen the edge. And it's not as if it could never been rehardened again.

 

[santaman2000]

It may have been commonly done (burning out), but back when I was responsible for chopping wood for the kitchen cooker I broke plenty of axe handles. Always got the remnants out by drilling, sometimes with a power drill, sometimes with a hand drill. Just needed to drill out the wedge. So I dunno why on earth someone would burn a handle out unless they didn't have access to any other tools.

To be honest, most of them back power drills were rare indeed. Even hand drills were rare among farmers and loggers here. As I said earlier, I'd rather drill it out now-a-days; but only because it's quicker and easier with a power drill and a vise.

 

[OneGear]

I've been following this thread and tried not to get involved but I have to say something.

Compared to the time and effort required to burn out the remnants of an old handle, just punching it out with a stick carved on the spot is far, far easier. We don't even have to get into whether the temper is affected. I'm guessing those who advocate burying their axe head in a fire and waiting around for a few hours have never spent the 10 minutes it takes to saw the old handle off, find and carve a short stick to a suitable dimension, and hammer the eye clear.

I can think of no reason to defend the burning out method. It takes longer, it consumes more resources, and very likely will ruin the temper on your axe. There is zero upside. Zero.

 

[santaman2000]

....Compared to the time and effort required to burn out the remnants of an old handle, just punching it out with a stick carved on the spot is far, far easier. We don't even have to get into whether the temper is affected. I'm guessing those who advocate burying their axe head in a fire and waiting around for a few hours have never spent the 10 minutes it takes to saw the old handle off, find and carve a short stick to a suitable dimension, and hammer the eye clear.

I can think of no reason to defend the burning out method. It takes longer, it consumes more resources, and very likely will ruin the temper on your axe. There is zero upside. Zero.

If you can "punch it out with a stick" (without drilling it) then you didn't have it fitted very well to begin with. It's take an hour to hammer my axe handles out with proper chisels.

As for "waiting around for a few hours" with the burning method, the common practice was usually to put it in the fire one day and go about your business until you retrieved it the next morning. "....Consumes more resources?" What resources are being consumed? Firewood? So just what farmer/homesteader/logger doesn't already have a fire going anyway?