2584 Chapter 22 



22-4 TOOL HANDLES 



The tool handle industry, while not one of the larger segments of the hard- 

 wood trade (fig. 29-35B), is particularly important in the utilization of ash and 

 hickory. White ash is favored for handles of lifting and pulling tools (and for 

 baseball bats). Hickory and white ash are the premium woods for handles of 

 other tools such as cant hooks, peavies, scythes, crosscut saws, and chisels — 

 and for ladder rungs. For handles of striking tools such as axes and mauls, 

 hickory is the favored wood. 



WHITE ASH SELECTION FOR HANDLE STOCK 



The text associated with figures 7-3 through 7-6 and 10-7 discusses selection 

 of white ash for maximum toughness and strength. In brief, upland ash on well- 

 drained hillside coves produces wood that is strong, stiff, and suitable for long, 

 heavy handles for lifting tools. Creek-bottom trees and suppressed trees produce 

 as heavy wood, but it is low in stiffness. White ash trees grow wood of uniformly 

 high specific gravity when they grow rapidly in diameter throughout their life. 

 Baker (1970) found that white ash sapwood does not vary from heartwood in 

 mechanical properties if growth rates are equal; he also observed that ash loaded 

 on the tangential face is tougher than that loaded on a radial face. 



Pillow (1950) concluded that ash trees of adequate toughness and specific 

 gravity for handle stock have relatively large, upward-tapering, generally well- 

 shaped crowns without large dead branches. Vigorous trees producing desirable 

 wood have tight bark with low ridges and shallow depressions, showing light- 

 colored streaks of inner bark. 



Non-destructive tests have not been particularly successful in selecting ash 

 handles for lifting and pulling, but handle blanks with highest modulus of 

 elasticity in static bending tend to have highest strength in such service. 



HICKORY SELECTION FOR HANDLE STOCK 



Hickory is the premium wood for handles of striking tools such as axes, 

 hammers, hatchets, picks, mauls, and sledges because of its impact resistance, 

 toughness, resilience, stiffness, and hardness. A high degree of hardness in 

 handle stock makes possible accurate machining and smooth finishing and 

 polishing during manufacture; during tool use, hard handles resist abrasion. Stiff 

 handles resist flexure under stress and when flexed are resilient and return 

 immediately to original form after relief. Hickory handles are tough and absorb 

 impact forces that would break most other woods; when hickory handles do 

 break, the failure is progressive fiber by fiber rather than sudden and abrupt as in 

 brash woods. (See figs. 10-7 and 19-1 for illustration of fiber-by-fiber failures 

 compared to brash failures.) Brash failures in hickory are almost always associ- 

 ated with tension wood. 



