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Woods for making tool handles

Ray Ewing

Ray Ewing

Joined
Dec 30, 2014
Messages
19
Likes
6
Location
Port Orchard, Washington
What are the best woods to use for making your own handles? I'm looking at rough usage for bowl gouges especially. I apologize in advance. I'm sure this has been asked a million times but I cannot find it. Thank you,
Ray
 
Free wood or Cheap scrap barrel wood.
My recent tool handles are Sapele. One of the club member get s lots of scraps.
Purple Heart I used to get cheap in Md a lot was used in boat building
Also Have used cherry, maple, white oak, walnut.

my Robust bowl gouge and two Jamieson bowl gouges all have Sapele handles.

my bowl gouges remove a lot of wood but I don’t put much stress on the handles.
I let the tools do the work

i don’t put any finish in my handles so I avoid open grain woods.
 
Any hardwood except for basswood will work. I've never even considered I could abuse any handle badly enough that I would consider the chance of breakage. We must have very different turning methods!
 
I generally use ash because it's the most common hardwood in our town. I once heard of someone who years ago made handles for all his turning tools out of ebony. Hard, heavy, solid, beautiful--what more could you want!
 
For my roughing spindle gouge I used a stout piece of hickory, but otherwise I've used ash, maple, walnut, PVC pipe, galvnized steel pipe, and aluminum tubing. Didn't turn those last 3 though. Made a couple of small handles with apple and cherry. The majority of mine are ash because it was available and I like the texture with minimal finish on it.
 
I think just about any wood will work. Primary thing for me is straight grained. If there is any cross grain in it, they can split there. Had that happen once.... I even made a couple out of cabinet grade plywood. Works fine. You can do all sorts of glue ups too.... Hickory is especially good for taking shock loads, which is why it is used for hammer handles and idiot stick handles: stick has 2 ends, broom/hoe/shovel on one end....

robo hippy
 
Ray Ewing said:
What are the best woods to use for making your own handles? I'm looking at rough usage for bowl gouges especially. I apologize in advance. I'm sure this has been asked a million times but I cannot find it. Thank you,
Ray
Click to expand...

I usually go to a big box and pick out a replacement shovel handle in ash or hickory and cut them into suitable handle lengths. After that, it's drilled and either a Oneway collet (for removable steel) or a shop-made copper collet for an epoxied-in tool is added. When I got started I didn't have a long enough bed to make a decent handle so I went with what I could manage.
 
If you use a metal band around the shank of the tool on the handle any species of wood will provide the needed strength for a tool handle. A piece of copper or brass tubing will provide more strength then some of the cheap brass bands that are used on many of the average tool handles out there.
 
I do not make handles anymore. My last handle was made from an aluminum tube with a 3/4 cam mechanism inserted. All my new tools up to 5/8“ fit into a 3/4” adapter sleeve which fits into the cam handle. One handle, many tools. Great for storage, portability and ease of sharpening. To change a tool, just twist and pop it out. No tools no set screws. If I made another handle with this mechanism I may choose An exotic.
 
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