how to rehab Estwing hand maul leather handle?

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pybyr

Minister of Fire
Hearth Supporter
Jun 3, 2008
2,300
Adamant, VT 05640
I have an Estwing hand maul that I found somewhere here when I bought the house- I really like its size and heft/ balance, but long before it came my way, some set of circumstances were less than kind to the leather rings that make up the handle- they're shrunken and brittle, and seem to be getting more and more that way as time goes by.

Since I hate to waste things and also have a cheap streak, I'd like to do something to "rehabilitate" the leather if I can- or at least keep the tool usable (right now if th leather rings get much looser or fall apart as I'm swinging it, it could be hazardous to me or nearby persons and things....).

Any ideas?

Soak it in neatsfoot oil or something else that the leather will absorb and then hopefully re expand?

Slather it in epoxy?

Tool handle dip?

Sleeve it with giant shrink-wrap tubing and then heat that to shrink it?

Other ideas?

Thanks
 
Take the pointer finger of your left hand and touch it to the tip of the thumb of the same hand forming an "O".
Now do the same with your right hand but interlocking with the left. Got it?
Leather is basically made up of small interlocking fibers and if it's gone too far, nothing will help it.
You could try to wet it real good and then cover it with foot oil. As the water dries out of it, the oil gets soaked in. Go slow.
If that doesn't help, maybe you could just shellac over it or use some of that Build 50 or one of them new fangled clear epoxy type sealers they have.
It sounds like a fine tool.
Hope you can save it.
Got a picture?
 
That's called 'seizing'. You can do that with real rawhide shoe laces...square cut.

Make a half loop along the bottom of the handle with the 2 ends facing down...bitter end& longer working end. With the longer length working end start warping up tightly toward the top of the loop. After you get 20- 30 tight round turns on the handle put the working end threw the loop at the top and pull the bottom end (the one you left alone) down threw the multi-wrapped handle....now it's secure. Just cut it and touch both cut ends up with a candle....DONE!
 
Is the handle wrapped in leather or is it a series of leather discs stacked onto a tang? If a tang, is it threaded on the end or rivetted?

If it's threaded, you unthread the end and add more washers. if it's rivetted, you file off the head, take off the end and file down the shoulder of the tang to effectively shorten it and expose more "rivet" to peen.
 
It's a bunch of leather discs stacked onto a tang with 2 riveted thing-os through a metal plate on the butt end of the handle. Never thought about maybe seeing if I could contact the company, which is still, I think, around, to get a new batch of leather washers. I'll also have to read up on the ideas above of doing a spiral wrap of rawhide lace- the leather discs are shrunken so badly that the extra diameter gained by the extra wrap could be a good thing.

Thanks for the ideas.
 
try mink oil. white paste like lard but softer. softens leather pretty well.
but if it was too dry for too long it may not be reversible.

always wanted one of those estwing hatchets as a kid, they looked so cool with that leather handle of the various colored rings.
daughter wanted one for christmas about 10 yrs old, so I got her one. still joke about the girl with the axe....
 
Please let us know what you do and how it works. I have the same or similar Eastiwng hatchet. Got it (I think) from my FIL. A year or two ago I "lost" it. I found it again about six months ago, lots of rust and leather washers shrunken but sound for the moment.

I still use the hatchet frequently for splitting kindling and for trimming small branches off of larger branches. In fact, with my back the way it's been for the past few weeks, the hatchet is the only thing I can safely (re)split with, other than the WoodWiz.

Peace,
- Sequoia
 
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