Tested from the woodpile to the whitetail camp.
Honest reviews of hunting axes, hatchets, tomahawks, and bushcraft axes. Written by woodsmen who have hung a hickory handle, sharpened a rusted Kelly head, and quartered elk with steel we picked ourselves.
Hands-on tested · Named writers · No paid picks · FTC compliant
A vintage Plumb or True Temper head with the original hang cracked out is a $200 axe waiting for $15 of hickory and a Saturday afternoon. Five steps, straight-grain handle, one wedge that failed on our second sample. Bring boiled linseed oil (BLO), not raw linseed; the polymerisation matters.
1. Pick a straight-grain hickory blank
Look at the end grain; the growth rings should run parallel to the swing plane (not across it). Reject anything with grain runout in the top 6 in of the shoulder. House Handle Co. and Tennessee Hickory Products sell straight-grain American hickory blanks for $15 to $25 shipped. A $10 big-box handle is money lit on fire; the grain runs random and it will crack in the first season on hardwood.
2. Rasp the tenon to fit the eye
The tenon (top of the handle that fits inside the head) is intentionally oversized. Rasp it down (4-in-hand rasp or a spokeshave) until the head slides on with hand pressure, then stops 1/2 in shy of full seat. Do not use a bench grinder; you will burn the wood and cook the fibres brittle. Check fit by holding the head up to a lightbulb; you want no visible gap.
3. Seat the head with the butt-strike method
Stand the assembly on the concrete floor, handle down, head up. Grasp the head and strike the butt of the handle straight down on the concrete. Inertia drives the head onto the handle full-seat. Do not swing a hammer at the head; you deform the eye and split the shoulder. Ten to twenty strikes and the head sits home.
4. Drive the wooden wedge, then the steel
Wooden wedge (poplar or basswood) into the kerf cut, hammered flush and dressed with a chisel. Then drive a small steel wedge crosswise for insurance. What we did wrong: on our second restoration we skipped the steel wedge to look purist, and the head loosened in the first month of dry weather. Steel wedge is not cheating; it is how the Plumbs shipped from the factory.
5. Soak the eye and finish with BLO
Stand the axe head-down in a shallow tin of boiled linseed oil for 24 hours. The hickory drinks BLO up into the eye, swells slightly, locks the wedges. Wipe the handle full-length with BLO afterwards; let it cure two weeks before hard use. Rag disposal matters: BLO rags spontaneously combust if you crumple them in a bucket. Lay them flat outside to cure or drown in water first.