Solid Wood Products 2589 



Longer bolts for industrial products such as textile picker sticks, pitman rods, 

 and handles for garden tools or brooms may be sawn on short-carriage headrigs 

 equipped with a 54-inch circular saw. 



Drying. — Air-drying of handle stock is described in text related to figure 20- 

 6. Kiln-drying schedules for ash squares are shown in table 20-25. Special kiln 

 schedules to avoid pinking in hickory handle stock are shown in tables 20-23 and 

 20-24. 



Machining, bending, and finishing. — Rough shaping is usually accom- 

 plished with a circular saw. Irregularly shaped handles, such as those for a 

 single-bit axe are turned on a copying lathe (fig. 18-188). Cylindrical handles 

 can be produced on a dowel machine (fig. 18-189AB). Handles for certain 

 lifting and pulling tools, e.g., shovel handles, may be soaked in hot water and 

 formed by bending (fig. 19-13). After trimming to length with circular saws, 

 handles are smoothed with coarse abrasive belts, polished with finer abrasives 

 (fig. 22-12), and waxed or lacquered. Painting is usually limited to low-grade 

 cheap handles. As one of the final operations, handles are usually labelled or 

 stamped with the name of the manufacturer and the trade name. 



YIELDS 



Hickory handle bolts are commonly bought and sold on the basis of estimated 

 handle yield for various diameters. Based on data collected by the Purdue 

 University Agricultual Experiment Station, handle yield from 40-inch hickory 

 bolts is approximately as follows (Herrick 1958; Lehman 1958). 



Top diameter of bolt 



inside bark Handle yield 



Inches Number 



7 3 



8 4 

 10 7-8 

 12 10-12 

 14 14-16 

 16 18-19 

 18 20-22 

 20 28 

 22 34 

 24 40 



22-5 FURNITURE AND FIXTURES 



The furniture industry is the largest user of hardwood lumber in the United 

 States (fig. 29-26 and 29-27). Veneer, plywood, particleboard, and hardboard 

 are also used in large quantities to make furniture and fixtures (table 22-10 and 

 fig. 29-36A). 



Spelter et al. (1978) found that in 1972 the furniture and fixtures industry 

 consisted of over 9,000 establishments employing 462,000 workers, and used 



