Making an Axe Handle with Hand Tools

Recently I came across four moderately used axe heads. Two of the heads were from light camp axes and one, though a beard had been cut into it, still showed the Wetterlings head stamp. I decided to make a handle for the Wetterlings first since I use axes primarily as woodcarving tools. The axe heads were dull and rusty and required a general cleanup and sharpening.

Though I own a few power tools I seldom use them anymore. Instead I use hand tools because I’ve come to despise noise and have grown tired of clouds of wood dust and wearing respirators and goggles. Despite some claims to the contrary hand tools don’t really slow you down. On the contrary, they help provide a tranquil working environment and allow you to understand the properties of wood in ways you’ll never appreciate if you always rely on electrical power.

I used a branch of Texas Persimmon, Diospyros texana, for the handle. The locals call it Chapote (chah-poh-the) which is an Indian word. The chapote branch was dry after a couple of years on a shelf in my storage building. The stockman pattern pocket knife is in the photo for size comparison but later on I’ll show you how I used that knife.

First I determined which end of the branch would take the axe head and then traced the pole diameter onto that end to serve as a template for how far I needed to carve. I used a Wetterlings carpenter’s axe for the initial shaping on the chapote branch. When possible I prefer using a heavier axe for woodcarving because the weight does most of the work and I don’t have to expend much energy in the actual cutting. In order to keep a flat cutting plane it’s important to mark (indicated by red lines) exactly how much wood you intend to remove. To keep your carving straight always take off wood along the red lines leaving a V or pyramid shape in the center. After you’ve completed taking the wood off along the lines you can then square off the top of the pyramid the length of the branch. This will ensure a nice and straight cut that doesn’t wander or corkscrew down the branch. I use this same method when I do the initial shaping on my selfbows.

After obtaining a rough width of the handle using the carpenter’s axe I switched over to a smaller camp axe to carve out the actual haft. I could have used the camp axe for all the work but when one does a lot of woodcarving with hand tools you learn to conserve energy. The heavier axe will actually conserve more energy than the lighter axe, but the lighter camp axe conserves more energy when performing detailed work. Note that I did not carve up to the template line but instead left a little room. I’ll work the wood down with more precise hand tools.

I am a lover of the crooked knife and hook knife. Please refer to my YouTube video for details on the crooked knives and hook knives I make:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0qpVW5r15M

I’ve grown so accustomed to carving with crooked knives and hook knives that I seldom use any other kind of knife. Besides, South Texas woods are exceedingly hard and Scandinavian grind knives that are so popular in the northern latitudes for various bushcraft projects don’t produce anywhere near the clean cutting or shaving actions of the chisel beveled crooked knife and hook knife. With my knives I can cleanly shave super hard woods like Texas ebony, mesquite, uña de gato (cat-claw) and the rock-hard guayacan that would resist and dull a more traditional type of knife.

I keep my knives razor sharp. Crooked and hook knives enable you to use the more innervated bicep muscle as opposed to the triceps and thus you can maintain extremely precise control of your carving. With my crooked knife and hook knife my skill levels far exceed that which I believe I would have been able to obtain with conventional bi-beveled knives. Or at least that’s been my experience. To each his own, of course.

After using the hook knife and crooked knife I took the handle down a bit more with a Nicholson #50 rasp. This was not a required step and I could have skipped it but I enjoy using a rasp and part of the fun is getting to switch out my tools. I might, for example, use three or four different axes when I work—not because I have to but just for the joy of it.

This is where I’ll use a pocket knife as a scraper. In the above picture I’m using the sheep’s foot blade on a stockman pattern pocket knife. When I make selfbows I prefer the spay-point on a trapper pattern pocket knife. Because the sheep’s foot and spay-point blades have flat edges they work particularly well as impromptu or detail work scrappers. Perhaps it’s best to us an inexpensive pocket knife when using it as a scraper since the blade will dull. Afterward I’ll sharpen the blade and it’s ready for my next project. By-the-way, the above pocket knife is a Magnum Bonsai from Böker.

Next, I made a shim from a paint mixing paddle. In the past I’ve made them from scrap wood lying around my workbench. It’s important to make sure the wedge is long enough to allow you to have something to tap on when inserting it into the haft. Some people make a longer wedge and then tap it in and cut it. I’ve done that too but in this case I more-or-less finished it, although after inserting it I did have to trim it about a quarter inch.

Finally, I used a coping saw to make a 1 inch deep notch where the expanding wedge will be inserted after the axe head has been tapped into the handle. You’ll note that I have worked the haft down to the template line and have been carefully checking the haft by inserting it into the axe head every couple of minutes. This is where you can mess up your work. If you are impatient you can overdo the reduction process and the haft will end up too loose. Also, you might actually split the wood at this point and be left with a nicely carved piece of firewood. My point is that you must go slow and be methodical in your work. A lot of woodwork is about learning patience and being able to adjust your plans to fit your needs when things don’t go exactly as you had hoped. Become proficient in altering the game plan and still ending up where you wanted to go and you’ll have mastered both woodcraft and carving.

Here’s the finished product. I coated the handle with Tung oil and exactly an hour and a half after I started the project I was using the axe to carve a new spoon. The handle is exactly eleven inches long (13 inches overall) and was left full enough to accommodate my hand. As you might have noted on the other axes pictured above I usually have to wrap the handles in order to fit my hand properly. When I make my own handles I can custom fit everything to suit me personally. I consider that a great advantage. One more note: I’m making a simple leather sheath and I’ll post that picture later. Because the axe has a beard it is light and comfortable to use for detail work. I’ve got another piece of chapote like the one used in this handle and I plan to make another handle for the other camp axe I acquired.         

Native American Ethnobotany….

Texas Persimmon (Diospyros texana) will ripen and provide a tasty treat for humans, birds, and mammals.

For those of you interested in ethnobotany you might consider the following website.  Learning to be more self-sufficient begins, I believe, with a proper understanding of native plants.  You will remain a neophyte woodcrafter (bushcrafter) if you refrain from knowing, in detail, the plants around you.  This includes a thorough knowledge of the ethnobotanical history of the area where you live.  The following website is a good place to begin.

http://herb.umd.umich.edu/

Bows and Arrows of the Coahuiltecan Geographical Region

Over the past decade I’ve focused on replicating the bows and arrows that might have been used by the Indians of the Coahuiltecan geographical region—the land from the Nueces River in South Texas to the Soto la Marina in northeastern Mexico. Though dozens of bows and arrows from other areas in the United States as well as from the southern parts of Mexico exist, no bow or arrow artifacts remain from the family groups and nomadic hunter/gatherers who roamed Coahuiltecan territory. Despite being genetically and linguistically related the “Coahuiltecans” never formed, to our knowledge, any sort of cohesive political group that might have constituted a tribe. They did however share both cultural and religious values and these commonalities assured a semblance of peace and harmony amongst the various groups.

Descriptions of bows and arrows from the region are scant and, as I have learned, subject to questioning. Most descriptions come from Spanish explorers. Bow details usually go no further than approximate lengths and the wood of choice is sometimes mentioned as “mesquite.”  We must remember, however, that the explorers were not botanists or do they seem to have possessed any more than a passing interest in bow technology. Arrows are described as made of “carrizo” or cane with “hardwood” foreshafts.

From the start I realized that mesquite must not have been a favorite bow wood, especially when attempting to build bows using only stone tools. In pre-Columbian times the region was thickly wooded with dense riparian zones lining rivers, lakes and ponds. These areas held the greatest plant and animal populations and it was within these ecological complexes that the Indians lived and thus gathered their bow staves.  Over the weeks to come I’ll post more pictures of bows that might have been used by the people of the Coahuiltecan Region. Below are a few.

Coahuiltecan bows probably ranged between 50 and 60 inches in length and had short draw lengths in order to accommodate the “pinch” arrow hold. One of the better bow woods of the region is anacua (Ehretia anacua) easily worked with stone tools and excellent in both compression and tension.  This anacua bow measures 55 inches long and draws 50 pounds at 24 inches.

Like most of the legumes, Guajillo, pronounced gwah-hee-yo, (Acacia berlandieri) is poor in tension.  This bow draws 44 pounds at 23 inches and measures 52 inches in length.

Chapote (Diospyros texana) makes an excellent bow. This chapote (Texas Persimmon) bow measures 49.5 inches in length and draws 45 pounds at 23 inches.

Brasil might have been a choice bow wood of the Coahuiltecan region if a long enough stave could be located. This brasil (Condalia hookeri) bow measures 53 inches in length and draws 47 pounds at 24 inches.

This bow is made of cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia) and the stave was collected after Hurricane Dolly ravaged The Rio Grande Valley. My staves are never taken from standing trees but instead coppiced branches or from saplings salvaged from work crew projects. Undoubtedly a top bow wood of the Coahuiltecan region, this cedar elm bow measures 52 ¼ inches and draws 48 pounds at 24 inches.

        

   

NATURE'S GARDEN

NOTE: This post is for educational purposes only.  Learning the native plants around you is a methodical process that must be approached carefully and preferably via someone who is an expert or at least well familiar with the plants.  This holds true especially for medicinal native plants since they are as likely to cause allergic reactions, side effects, and in some cases may even be harmful to those with preexisting medical conditions.  Always, consult with your doctor before you begin using any type of medicinal native plant either by ingestion or topically.

There are two types of gardens: The garden you put in every spring or early fall and then the garden growing naturally in the woods or vacant lots around you.  It’s just a matter of learning what plants are edible or medicinal and then acquiring a sufficient body of knowledge to know either how to eat those native plants or use them for some medical purpose.

My introduction into using native plants for food began when I was only a child.  Nopalitos (Opuntia engelmannii) were a regular household item especially at my grandmother’s house where she cooked them with picadillo or scrambled eggs or even just by themselves.  My grandfather and I would make forays at the ranch looking for edibles and it was through him that I first became familiar with pitaya strawberry cactus (Echinocereus enneacanthus) and coma fruit and with other plants like the small elongated red fruit of the pin cushion cactus (Mammillaria heyderi).  My Papagrande would notice a plant and then tell me whether it was edible or had some sort of medicinal value.  We’d always speak in whispers and I’ve carried that practice into adulthood when in the woods.  The learning process began at about the age of seven and by the time I reached Junior High School I had acquired enough expertise to go looking for plants on my own.  Even so, some of my fondest memories are of walking through the quiet woods with my grandfather searching for plants to collect to eat on the spot or that would be taken back to the brick cabin that served as ranch headquarters, the place for family gatherings and sleepovers.

All these years later I still roam the woods examining the foliage and making note of where all the edible and medicinal trees and shrubs are located.  I visit those spots often to check on the various plants.  Is the fruit ready to eat?  Is there some plant nearby I can use for a tea or for insect repellent?  Perhaps there is a plant about ready to flower and the flowers themselves are edible.  I’ve learned to differentiate between the species of prickly pear growing around me noting which ones produce the best nopalitos or the best tunas or the best darts.  Yes, you read correctly; I said darts.  I keep forgetting to show all of you how to make nopal darts and so sometime this week I’ll go out looking to see if I can find any prickly pear still blooming.  When I was a kid we’d make darts from the bright yellow or red flowers and then spend an hour or so having dart games on the nopal pads.  It’s the kind of simple pleasure that ranch kids enjoy and I assure you it is in many ways infinitely more productive than the modern obsession with sitting for hours in one’s room playing computer games.  As we played darts we’d be surrounded by nature with all its sounds and smells and the intense hues of greens and yellows, reds, blues, pinks.  We’d stop to sniff the air as a group of javelina passed nearby or perhaps if we heard a deer snort not far away.  It was never quiet but it was not noisy either.  Noise is what people experience in cities and on highways.  Noise is some fellow driving up alongside with the speakers in his auto rumbling and shaking the very earth beneath you.  I always think those ignorant fools will be deaf before they reach the age of forty.  Too bad, so sad.  But in nature the sounds are soft and pleasant and comforting.

Nature’s garden is a mecca of teas.  There is the tea from salvia (Croton incanus) and oregano (Lippia graveolens).  There is the tea from colima (Zanthoxylum fagara) and from mejorana (Salvia ballotiflora).  There are, in fact, so many teas available that given a supply of water one will never be without some pleasant beverage while woods roaming or camping.  At my dad’s ranch in Mexico we’d drink a tea made from ebony beans.  The locals also made a tea from mesquite beans and from huisache (Acacia farnesiana) beans.  We ate the fruit from the brasil (Condalia hookeri) and from lote bush (Ziziphus obtusifolia).  We munched down on granjeno (Celtis pallida) and chapote (Diospyros texana) berries.  Here at our place I am surrounded by duraznillo (Prunas texana) shrubs.  I’ve written about duraznillo (little peach) and about many of the plants mentioned above.  I play a game with the local birds every spring to see who gets the small peaches that amass on the duraznillo shrubs.  The birds always win.

Nature’s garden provides all sort of tubers and stalks and leaves and seeds.  There is a plant called mala mujer (Cnidoscolus texanus) that is blooming and I look out my bedroom window and see scores of mala mujer in full bloom in my “backyard.”  But woe to the poor soul who happens to bump into a mala mujer (Texas Bull Nettle) wearing nothing but Bermuda shorts or perhaps who sees the succulent white flowers and stoops to pick one.  Like its small cousin ortegia (Urtica dioica) (stinging nettle) the hairs on the mala mujer (bad woman) inject a potent mixture of histamine, formic acid and serotonin—except that in mala mujer the inoculation is about ten times stronger.  A lady wrote me recently saying she had mowed her lawn using a weed eater and had decided to mow the mala mujer as if they were just another small shrub.  Fortunately, she was wearing glasses but she had on shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and when she mowed the bull-nettle it sprayed all over her.  Instantly, her skin was on fire.  The pain was horrific.  Her neck, face, arms and legs became nothing more than giant red welts that felt as if someone had poured acid on her skin.  Her email to me was written in desperation.  Dear Mr. Longoria what can I do?  I’m in terrible pain.  I wrote back and told her to make a paste of baking soda and to apply it directly to the welts and irritated skin since the baking soda would help neutralize the acid.  She said she’d taken a Benadryl tablet but it had done little good.  I advised her to keep taking the Benadryl since it would counter the histaminic effects of the nettle.  Then I asked her to please see a doctor if the pain did not subside.  She wrote back saying she would take my advice.  She made the baking soda paste and applied it to her body.  I can only imagine what she must have looked like covered in welts and red irritated skin.  I imagine the pain was excruciating.  But here’s a little secret…or perhaps a secret that most people don’t know but that now you will know.  The seeds of mala mujer are quite tasty.  They are large seeds and one simply gathers the seed pods (very carefully!) and places them on a table then allows them to dry.  When the pods ripen they burst open exposing the seeds.  You roast the seeds or can even grind them up to make a coffee/tea drink.  So you see even the most vicious plants are edible.  In fact, stinging nettle (ortegia) can be harvested, boiled (which destroys the toxins) and then eaten.  They are rich in vitamins and taste somewhat like cooked spinach.  Another one of my favorites is called pepino del monte that grows wild all around this area.

Medicinal plants abound.  I make a very effective insect repellent from a species of lippia known as Lippia alba.  A species of croton (Croton incanus) also produces an effective insect repellent.  This species called salvia is used as a medicinal tea to treat bronchitis.  One late summer when the ragweed got me bad I drank salvia tea on a daily basis to help with the congestion.  The inner bark of the chaparro prieto (Acacia rigidula) was used to treat diabetes and arthritis.  The “juice” from the leather stem or Sangre de drago (Jatropha dioica) was used to heal mouth sores and tooth aches.  Some claim it was also used to treat kidney disease.  A toxic concoction made from pita (Yucca treculeana) leaves was used to induce abortions.  Alcoholic “medicines” were made from prickly pear, mesquite beans, and agave and from various wild berries.  The list of medicinal plants is extensive—far too long for a blog post.  In my novella, The Trail, I incorporate many of the traditions of South Texas especially those related to native plants.  But native plants are not the only “wild” foods available.  In northeastern Mexico the nopal rat is considered a delicacy.  A scene in The Trail revolves around the consumption of nopal rats.  By the way, I’ve had a number of requests to bring out The Trail in a paperback edition.  I have heard you and have asked to have inexpensive paperback editions printed for my blog readers.  Those should be available soon.

The root from the guayacan (Guaiacum angustifolium) makes an excellent soap as does the root from the agave.  Agave stalks, by the way, are edible and quite tasty and the root bulb is sometimes cooked in a pit overnight.  Excellent dyes can be made from colima, chapote, coma (Sideroxylon celastrinum), brasil, tuna and several flowers.  Sealants can be concocted from nopal.  Glue is made from mesquite sap (Prosopis glandulosa).

This blog is about Bushcraft (Woods Craft) and preserving nature, and in another world most of what laymen call Woods Craft is known as the field of ethnobotany.  Most people aren’t really all that interested in taking Woods Craft to the highest levels.  I understand that and know that for many the field of Bushcraft is mostly about talking about knives and making bow-drills and camp shelters.  Bushcraft can be practiced in many ways.  The majority of aficionados do not aspire beyond the most rudimentary skills.  But for those seeking a “Ph.D”. in bushcraft then a thorough knowledge of nature’s garden is essential.