Draw knife handles

Re: Draw knife handles

Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away

>Monte,

I highly doubt you'll ever find manufactured replacement handles for a drawknife. I would think that you'd take your drawknife and rough out your own, than shaped them to final size with rasps and spokeshaves. Use another drawknife as an example on how to make a ferrule for them, bore a hole thru the center so that the tang extends past the top of the new handle, put a little metal cap on top of the handle, and bash the tang down on top of it. PRESTO! New handle.

I suppose if you must buy a replacement than some of the wooden handles that are intended to be jammed onto the ends of files would work quite nicely.

Todd O.

Re: Draw knife handles

Greg B�tit, Vergennes VT

>For the money a new handle would cost (if one were to be available), he could probably get a nice draw knife on eBay. Someone with a lathe could whip up a duplicate in a New York minute, but the economics of it would still be prohibitive. That's what friends are for.

Replacement draw knife handles are probably not available because they are not much in demand. The fact that "one size fits all" does not apply to draw knives is one good reason no one is mass producing them.

I went to the hardware store to buy a shovel handle last year. Imagine my surprise to discover that a brand new Chinese shovel cost 2/3 of what the handle replacement did. The hardware store owner pointed this fact out to me while I was gleefully standing in front of him with the replacement handle in one hand and my other going for the wallet. (The Borg is coming to the area soon, I sure hope he can weather the storm. I'll do my part to keep him in business.)

I hate to throw a good shovel away. But I bought that Chinese one and put the broken one in the corner with all my other old shovels that need rehandling. I'll have a huge ash log, all the chair parts I will need for two years already made, and some extra hours on my hands some day. You bet.

greg