So that during operation the hammer does not fly off the handle, but sits on it securely and firmly, it is enough just to put it on the handle correctly once.
Lever
First, about the dimensions: the hammer handle should be oval in section, from 250 to 350 mm long, gradually tapering towards the end on which the hammer head is mounted.
The wood of birch, beech, oak, ash, maple, hornbeam or mountain ash is best suited for making handles. It is completely unacceptable to manufacture handles for a hammer from species with easily prickly wood: pine, spruce, aspen or alder.
Hammers with metal and plastic handles are now on sale. They completely lack the problem of putting the head on the handle, but for some reason I prefer hammers with wooden handles. They are warmer to the touch, and in the hand they sit more reliably and more comfortably.
Most often, hammer handles are made from birch wood. If the handle is carved by you from a thick birch branch, it must be dried in a warm, shady and well-ventilated place.
Do not try to dry wood using artificial heat sources: electric fireplaces, heaters, radiators. With such drying, the tree inevitably cracks and loses its strength.
If the wooden handle for the hammer is not sufficiently dried, over time it will dry out and decrease in volume, and the head will hang on it, constantly threatening to fly off the tool handle.
Attaching the hammer head to the handle
Insert the thin end of the handle into the hole in the hammer head. The ideal would be to fit the head on the handle with a certain effort, or, as the masters say, "with an interference fit."
If the handle turned out to be thick, treat its thin end first with a rasp and then with sandpaper. As a result, the end of the handle should be a gentle cone. Having screwed the hammer head onto the handle, make sure that it is strictly perpendicular to the centerline of the handle.
Holding the handle vertically, with the head of the hammer up, strike it with the back wide end on a hard surface from top to bottom. With each stroke, the tool head will slowly but surely sit on the expanding handle, hardening more and more on it.
The immobility of the head during subsequent blows will indicate that it has “sat” firmly enough on the handle.
Hammer handle wedge
Prepare a place for a wooden wedge. To prevent the wedge from going to the side and ruining the handle, make a notch about 5 mm deep with a narrow chisel at an angle of 30 0 to the longitudinal axis of the hammer.
A wooden wedge is a blade about 3 mm thick, about 15 mm wide and 30 to 50 mm long. The wedge should taper smoothly towards the front, but its end should be blunt.
After the wooden wedge is hammered into the handle by about 15-20 mm, with a hacksaw with a fine tooth, saw off the upper part of the handle protruding from the hammer head so that it protrudes ...
Absolutely not everyone modern man can put a hammer on the handle. It would seem simple, but when doing such work, most home craftsmen have some problems. This is due to the fact that in order to maintain tools in a normal state, it is necessary to regularly encounter them and understand the principle of their construction.
Today, there are hammers on the construction market, the handle of which is made of metal or synthetic materials and, accordingly, there is no need to stick it. However, along with modern tools, the use of traditional hammers with a wooden handle is often practiced.
Why is it necessary to fit the handle?
The popularity of wooden handles is due not only to their cheapness. Wood is a lightweight material, and for hammers this is an extremely important parameter. The handle should have a light mass, and his head should be weighty. This is necessary to increase the impact force. Using homemade wooden holders, a person has the opportunity to customize the tool depending on their anthropometric features, taking into account the thickness of the handle, its length and other dimensions.
For normal operation, the tools must be kept in perfect order. This is especially necessary if you have to use the tools quite often. To drive in a few nails a couple of times a year, you can also use a bad hammer with a cracked handle. However, if the hammer is the most essential tool to work, it must be maintained in excellent condition. If the tool is not in proper condition, then you risk not only injuring yourself, but also harming others if its shock part jumps off.
It is important to note that on dangling tools this happens quite often, not only due to wear of the material, but also due to improper fit of the impact part on the holder. In addition, the wood used as a handle is of particular importance.
What wood material is used for the hammer handle?
First of all, it is necessary to exclude the type of wood that easily splits and cracks. These include spruce, pine, aspen, alder, etc. At the same time, it is recommended to use hornbeam, maple, mountain ash, dogwood, ash, oak, beech or birch as a handle for metalwork steel hammers.
Before turning wood the material must be pre-dried, since the hammer must be worn exclusively on dry wood.
This is due to the fact that in the process of drying, any material decreases in size, water evaporates and its volume decreases. If an insufficiently dried handle is used when landing a hammer, then over time it will dry out, will constantly dangle and subside.
Video "How to make a hammer that does not fly off"
Hammer handle shape selection
According to GOST, 3 forms are used to make a holder for a hammer. However, the master can perform other ergonomically convenient forms of handles at his discretion. This is often practiced in self-manufacturing handles, but how correctly one of the GOST options is taken as the basis.
When making holders, it is important to take into account the fact that the size of the workpiece must be longer than what is needed in the end. The maximum margin is about 5 cm. Basically, the handle should taper towards the end that faces the impact part of the instrument.
Hammer handle process
Often the size of the opening of the head of the hammers at the top and bottom entrance is slightly wider than in the middle. Thus, the dimensions of the workpiece for the handle in the thin end part must correspond to the dimensions of the holes in the middle of the impact part of the tool. V without fail it is necessary to check whether the hole for the handle on the striker is well made with a tool. You can see how this is done in the photo.
It shows the striker of an old hammer that needs some preliminary processing. Without these works, it will be impossible to complete the attachment of the handle. Paying attention to the picture, we can see that the ebb of the striker was made quite poorly, there are large influxes of metal and irregularities, each entrance to the holes on both sides differs by 6-8 mm than in the middle of the striker.
To correct all defects and irregularities, it is necessary to process the internal and outside hammer striker with a file. Then you need to insert the thin end of the handle into the bottom hole of the hammer to fit all the dimensions correctly. The tip of the handle should be flush with the opposite side of the striker. If the thickness of the handle is greater than the corresponding holes, then it must be processed with sandpaper so that the element was inserted into the hammer hole with a certain tightness.
Due to the fact that at the end of the handle we achieve a gentle cone, then with more deep dive into the hammer head, it will be pulled more tightly. It is worth noting that in the process of this it is important to take into account that the striker on the handle is without distortions, but is installed at a right angle.
To hammer the handle into the hole of the striker, it is necessary to hit it with the back side in a vertical position on the anvil, workbench tabletop, etc.
Due to its weight, the impact part of the hammer will slowly fit on the expanding cone of the handle under the influence of its own weight. At the same time, it is strongly not recommended to stuff with hammers or hard objects on the back of the handle, as this will lead to its split. This method can only be used when fitting a non-metallic shock part (wooden or plastic), for example, for a mallet.
After the hammer head is firmly planted, and the movement of the handle in the shock part will no longer be observed, then it is necessary to saw off the protruding part by means of hacksaw blade, retreating previously half a centimeter above the impact heads. That is why it is necessary to use a longer workpiece.
Hammer handle wedge
Often purchased hammers have incorrectly clogged wedges. Basically, a metal plate is hammered in the center of the longitudinal axes at the end of the handle. Because of this, after a short time, loosening and loosening of the handle in the hole of the striker occurs. To avoid this, it is necessary to make a notch on the back of the handle, the depth of which will be about 0.5 cm. For this, you can use a narrow chisel. The notch must be made so that it is located not along, but across the entire length of the end. If done incorrectly, then in the process of clogging the wedge, the handle may split. It is important that the wedges enter the handle tightly, slowly pushing the wood layer apart.
For wedges, it is recommended to remove the same type of wood from which the handle itself is made. The dimensions of the Wedge are about 2-3 mm thick and about 1.5 cm wide, it all depends on the size of the hammer. In this case, the wedge should not be long, a maximum of about 4-5 cm, otherwise it will simply break in the process of driving it into the handle. The front of the wedge must be sharpened at an obtuse angle. Before hammering the wedge, it must be lubricated. The use of silicone sealant is recommended as a lubricant. Thanks to this substance, it will not only be easily immersed in wood, but also securely fixed in the handle.
After the client has been hammered, the protruding end of the handle must be sawn off again so that protrusion of the hammer head was no more than 2-3 mm.
In the case of using dry wood for the handle, it will be enough to drive in one wedge, but if the material is softer, then it is recommended to drive in a second, but already a metal wedge. Its width and thickness should be the same as that of a wooden one, but the length should not exceed 2 cm.
The wedges are driven in completely flush with the back of the handle. After all the basic work has been completed, it is necessary to finish the handle with large and small types of sandpaper. After that, the handle of the tool is impregnated with drying oil and varnished. Do not use paint to cover.
The method of fitting the handle on the hammer described above is quite reliable. There is nothing complicated here. Having made the nozzle according to all the rules, you will forget about hammering nails into the handle and screwing in screws, which is often practiced by many craftsmen to avoid hanging the handle during work.
Video "How to put a hammer on"
All wooden handles for hand tools are made from well-dried birch, including for hammers. For hammers weighing 300-400 grams, a blank of a rectangular bar, 350 millimeters long, with sides 40x30, is enough. Measure the inner throat of the hammer head. After finishing, you should get a bar with sides of approximately 35x25. On one side of the bar, mark the center (with lines from corner to corner). Build a rectangle around this center with sides equal to the hole on the hammer in width and height. Drive the ribs and planes of the bar with a planer from the back of the future handle to the sides of the rectangle drawn on the end. Chamfer the corners and round them off. Using sandpaper, fit the front edge of the handle to the size of the hole in the hammer so that it comes into tension.
The lines on the end of the handle that we drew to build the rectangle will now become marks for the place of the wedges. Take a chisel and make notches on them, so that the notches do not reach the edge of the handle closer than 5 mm, otherwise the wedges can split the handle.
We drive in wedges crosswise - first wooden and then iron. I use resinous pine for a wooden wedge, it sticks well to a birch handle.
I don't use any paintwork materials. I don't feel comfortable when the handle slides. A new handle mounted on a hammer, including its end parts, is impregnated a couple of times with clean engine oil, with drying a day between layers. The handle of such a hammer does not absorb water, even left in the rain, the hand does not freeze from it in the cold season, and as a kind of aesthetic addition, it has a beautiful amber color - this color of birch staining is obtained from oil.
Usually, to fix the hammer on the handle, a wooden wedge (usually birch) is driven into it. Sometimes a couple more metal wedges are added to it. This may be necessary if he himself is quite massive. However, you can do without wedges by putting a hammer on the handle with rubber.
Regardless of whether a purchased handle is available or it will be made by hand, it is better if it is made of hardwood, and at the end the annual rings should be located longitudinally, and not transversely. In this case, the handle will be stronger and more durable. In addition, this method of seating does not require a wedge slot to loosen the handle.
It is only necessary to fit the side with a smaller section to the hole in the hammer head. Then you need to cut a segment from a bicycle chamber or any elastic rubber that can cover the fit of the handle with a slight backlash and have a margin of about 1 cm in width in both directions. The outer part of the rubber must be lubricated with lithol.
Then you just need to hit the opposite end of the handle on a hard surface (for example, a wooden chock). Make sure that the hammer is in place, remove excess lithol with a rag and cut off the ends of the rubber on both sides of the hammer head.
The junction of the hammer and the handle should be carefully glued with PVA, second or other similar glue. On the one hand, this will make the connection stronger, on the other hand, it will prevent moisture from penetrating into the joint, which means that wood and metal will not deteriorate.
Another big plus of the rubber layer is that it sort of dampens the impact force, and it is less felt in the hand.
This method can be used for both mounting an ax and a sledgehammer. It is clear that sooner or later the glue will peel off, and its layer will need to be updated. The handle should be burned with a blowtorch or gas burner and wipe well. Then it will become more comfortable and will look more noble.
To make the connection even stronger, you can replace lithol with thick soap jelly. At first, it lasts the desired glide, and after drying or more, it will hold together. If used as an adhesive silicone sealant it will crack less.
In order not to damage the opposite end of the handle during the process (especially in the case of a massive tool), it is necessary to strengthen it for the duration of the work with a clamp, construction tape or vinyl tape. Rubber can be replaced with a galvanized sheet tube with a seam seam, the principle of operation will be exactly the same as with rubber.
