Handeling My Saw

[ernest dubois]

With some Paulownia, saved for some years now I go to making up saw handle blanks to fit a new saw for myself and pass on to a member of these forums wanting his own saw handling material.
I kleve.
I rive.
I cut to length.
I trim up.
And I got some nice blanks that will quickly dry, this being Paulownia.
Shortly I will get the saw handled and get back to you with that.

[Rob]

Great post Ernest, I'm looking forward to seeing your progress

[durbien]

Love the shoes!!

[ernest dubois]

Yes, thanks for the compliment, they are poplar.

[ernest dubois]

To get a scope on moisture condition I went to working a sample piece.

Getting a true face,

and edge

The wood after some three years outside still has a surprising amount of moisture in there, knowing all the time that Paulownia does readily take on moisture and moisture is high around here this time of the year.

I got a place up high, above the boiler room, with the chimney pipe running through there, where I put wood to get dry,

[Gadge]

I may be talking through my a... , but wouldn't it be better to cut the piece up into handle blanks before curing, as this is a large piece of timber which will still take a long time to cure? Or do you think that would cause them to warp.

Gadge

[ernest dubois]

I'm not sure what you mean but will try and be more explicit. I have roughly prepared the blanks three years after acquiring the stems, a part of which were milled right away with this last section left whole till I knew just what I wanted to do with it. Because I'm using it for saw handles, choosing to rive out sections made the most sense to me and I took them down to size accounting for the unpredictability of the method, that is to say leaving plenty room for an errant run of grain. Still, I was able to get half quartered sections, with the loss of only one half a length from run-out. In preparing the blanks I took off the thin edges with an axe mostly for better storage but also to reduce the bulk so they can dry that much more quickly. And speaking of drying quickly, this wood will be in a usable stage in not more than half a year, it dries so fast.

Now it strikes me that there are still options to be weighed and even perused, maybe one of which you have in mind. Since I want to rip and joint them for making up the handles, I could even saw the rough blank in half at this stage. Re-jointing it would then surely cost more wood and make the joint line less continuous, at least that would be the risk or trade-off for speeding it up. Or I could mill the blanks to even a closer tolerance and remove more bulk to speed up the migration of the water, or bring the centers closer to the outside. I don't think it would make such a difference once a allowance for the waste from re-sawing and jointing are accounted for, mostly because this is Paulownia and a few mm more wood will not effect drying time much, like it would if it were Ash or Mountain Rowan. So it might be in regards to the expectations of this particular wood that you may indeed be talking through your ass. (Oops, I better not forget this , if past experience is any guide.)

The one I will try - and that is related more to this posting because it's more direct - is to try mounting the saw by pre-drilling and sinking the tang of the saw into the less than cured handle with the idea that maybe as it dries the wood will contract around the tang, that the moisture still in the wood being volatile might even create a bonding with the iron as it dissipates. This last option is one that will occur incrementally over the next few weeks with a select blank, as an experiment in self education, my background being mostly auto-didactic as it is.

[Paul Atzenweiler]

You are the man Ernest!! I think your method is what I will try for some of my saws.

[ernest dubois]

Sawed handles just wont cut it.

[Gadge]

What I meant was the blanks appeared to be quite large in comparison to the finished handles, so I though you could possibly tolerance more tightly. I don't have any experience with curing Paulownia and you obviously know exactly what is needed. I'll stop talking through the wrong orifice.
Like you, I'm very much an auto-didact, as are most of the people on this site, I suspect.