I am looking for a web site that has good information on replacing hammer handles. I have replaced many, but they always seem to loosen over time. I am also looking for info on using epoxy in the installation of the handles.
Thank you, David
Wood hammer handles will always loosen over time. Wood is not a stable material, and changes/moves with changes in humidity. Soaking in a water bucket helps. One contracter (a very good one that I have known for years) told me to put it in the freezer. You can reset the handle when it gets loose. Or you can get a metal or fiberglass handle. Straight claw hammers are not made to pull nails. Curved clawed hammers will do a fair job. Nail pullers work the best. robo hippy
So what are the straight claws designed to do then?
I think what he means is that, although both types of tools (straight or curved claw) will pull the occasional nail, and each has a specific situation that it excels at, a nail puller is a better tool for the job of removing large quantities of nails.
Of course, I could be wrong about what he means...
Greg G.
Get a locations a curved claw can't...
That's what the wedge is for..soaking doesn't help for long and will simply exacerbate the problem more than likely...
Are you setting the wedge properly?
If the handle matches the hammer head opening and the wedge is set properly, you should be good to go.
Lew
As near as I can tell, the nail pulling is a fulcrum thing; the closer the fulcrum is to the nail being pulled, the better the leverage is. With a straight clawed hammer, if you pull a 16 penny framing nail out about an inch, the fulcrum movet to the head of the hammer, which gives loust leverage. This can be off set by putting bar or board under the hammerhead to change the fulcrum back. The other altermative is to pull the nail by levering side to side rather than back to front. The straight claws work well for splitting small pieces of wood, digging small trenches, picking up boards, and prying boards apart (twisting sideways after driving it in). Wood always moves, and I never found or heard of a way to keep a wood handle tight forever.I would never trade the wood handles for the other types, especially the metal ones. They just feel so much better, especially at the end of the day.
Fine Woodworking did an interesting experiment a few years back with wood movement. They started with 3 pieces of wood (2x12x12) that were all dry to 6%. All three were bolted to a metal table on the bottoms. One had nothing on the top. The other 2 had an I beam on the top. One was bolted to the I beam. The moisture content was raised way up, then they were dried out to 6% again. The free standing one expanded a bit (1/2 inch or so) then shrank back to origional size. The one that wann't bolted to the top I beam couldn't expand, but shrank to less than origional size. The one that was bolted top and bottom split as it dried. If you set your hammer handle in the dry season, it will expand in the wet season, and then shrink in the next dry season and become loose. If you reset it again, it will loosen up again. I don't think that I ever had a handle last more than a few years, so I don't know if this process will go on forever or not. It is just something that you have to live with if you use wool handles. robo hippy
You've had bad luck, then. I've got hammers 50 years old and older that are still on the original (tight) handle.
Wedging them tight to start with, with both wooden and steel wedges, is one trick. Some linseed oil occasionally, and keeping them out of the rain, is the rest of it. Wetting a handle to swell it is the worst thing you can do. The wood will swell and temporarily tighten the fit but, since it can't expand any more than the hole in the hammer will allow, it will crush the fibers. When it dries, it will be looser than it ever was.
John Martin
Vaughn & Bushnell's plant is located just north of me in Hebron, Illinois. A friend had a chance to walk through with one of the mucky's there at least 25 years ago.
The procedure they use is a close tolerance wood handle that gets REALLY dried out with the end stuck in a bucket of heated sand. They set it, wedge it and chances are that hammer/handle never again sees a relative humidity that dry.
I've got a couple of their hammers, both are about 27-28 years old. Original handles and tight as a ... well, you know.
Any idea who long one would need to keep the handle in the sand?
Dave
I've replaced a number of axe, hatchet, claw hammer and sledge hammer handles over the past twenty or so years (a bunch before I heard of this method). Heat the end of the handle to dry it. Slather the entire thing with epoxy. Handle, wooden wedge, socket in the head of the whatever and the steel splitting wedges. Whack the whole thing together. Twenty years later it will look the same and it won't be loose. Not the only way but quick and dirty and it works.
bob g.
Unquesti> Duane Bozarth wrote:
On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 16:45:49 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, KS quickly quoth:
They appear to be perfect for serial killers, caving in skulls neatly and cleanly, subjectively.
I use a framing hammer exclusively for nails. When I need to pull one, I use a wedge of oak flooring I built for that purpose. But most items I assemble with hardware get screws, not nails.
I don't think that it was bad luck, it was 30 years of concrete construction in the Great Pacific Northwet, the ultimate test of use and abuse.. My shop hammers fair much better. robo hippy
[snip
No clue. I'm guessing they use the sand pots to get the temp up high, provide a thermal mass that's stable yet not enough to start burning the wood and only heat up the end to be fit into the hammer's head.
If the sand is at say, 325 or 350 degrees, how long could it take to bring the wooden end of the handle (remember you're not heating the whole thing) up to that temperature and let it "bake" itself dry?
Then again, as I write this, I'm beginning to "recall" (and I have no idea if it's correct or not) that Ted may have told me they left them in overnight.
It just seems strange because the plant isn't all that big and I have this picture of all these handles "growing" out of sand boxes
Remember too, that this was done, I think, BEFORE they put the spray finish on the handles. That would certainly impede the drying process - heat or no heat.
I know that at one time Stanley, and maybe others, used to/still pre-compress the shaft end before assembly.
Certainly my Stanley hammers have remained tight over many years.
Jeff G
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