Hey folks ,
This is what I have been up to for the past few days.
I have a few axe and hatchets now and some of them need work done on them.
you can see here the comparison. The head of the one i made is from exactly the same type of hatchet as the bottom one. (also a clipper for scale)
The one here is a powerfix 800g hatchet that had completely snapped off of the shaft. I made the handle a longer because I found having that extra bit of length make a hell of a difference.
So after the battle of removing what wood was left in the head , I made a new a new shaft from a piece of hardwood that was in the wood stockpile ( Haven't a clue what type of wood it is).
I then cleaned all the old paint and rust of with a belt sander and got rid of most of the dinks around the edges.
Next was to join the head to the shaft. I shaped the end so that it would be a tight fit. I cut the wedge slot in first before attaching. I then got a bit of steel bar and made the wedge using a belt sander to get the shape.
After attaching I rebated the top just a bit to allow me to give it a covering of epoxy resin (Not many people do this I know but I personally like to do it this way).
After more sanding getting it to exactly how I wanted it I stained the wood.
The trickiest part of all was getting the grip onto the handle.
I like to put extra grip on my hatchets and this time I went for something new (Bike inner tube). It took a lot of time and many curses to get that bloody tubing over the end of the handle I even had to make a frame to strectch it in 4 directions to get enough room to slip the handle through.
I was glad I decided to use the inner tube as it really helps and feels a lot better.
Last thing to do on the handle was give it a coated coating of boiled linseed.
I had to sharpen the blighter now and thanks to British Reds guide It has a great edge on it now. ( Thanks Red)
so here is the results, I am pretty pleased with it seeing as this is only the second one I have made a new handle for. All I have left to do is polish the head up a bit more.
Atb
