axe handle fire last night

[dvellone]

As I've broken an axe, mattox, sledge or other sizable handle over the years I've been loath to toss the remains thinking that that nicely formed handle would come in handy some day for some project (my father was a child of the depression and passed on his values to me).
Yesterday as I was running around doing some last minute winter preparations outdoors - putting away anything that would get lost under the snow and then find it's way into the snowthrower auger - I spied the pile of handles which for all my best intentions had truly become a pile. Now, I have to say here that I have this small obsession with not tapping into my woodshed until December 1st even though it holds a bit more than a full season's heating supply, so I scrounge and burn all my scrap from woodworking projects - mostly softwood- and the half rotted low-grade stuff I don't want to fill the shed with until the last of November. And hence one of the most beautiful and hot fires I've had in a while. It was my first opportunity to burn hickory and I'm a convert, though unfortunately there's none to be found around my property. Maybe I need to replace those handles before they break!

 

[Wood Duck]

Nice, solid, well-seasoned hickory burns great. I might have a broken baseball bat fire one of these days. Baseball bats are normally Ash, I think.

 

[Battenkiller]

My son is a rock drummer, and he goes through a lot of good, dense hickory drumsticks in the course of a year. Maybe I'll have him save them all for me and have a hickory stick fire myself.

 

[Gark]

Before I got splitting mauls with fiberglass and iron handles, I used to break alot of hickory handles. So many that the wife
said (jokingly) "hey why don't you just buy truckloads of handles and burn them"? Hmmmm, that might be a good idea....

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I use them for smaller handles on chisels and hammers and such.

Matt