Swelling the head of a loose hammer or axe handle in antifreeze

[wavinwayne]

Most of us know the old trick of submerging the head of an old dried out hammer or axe in water to swell the handle end and keep the hammer or axe's business end from flying off. The obvious problem is the water eventually dries out and the handle shrinks again. Well the other day I was watching @essentialcraftsman on YouTube, and he mentioned submerging the head into antifreeze instead of water. He said it will absorb into the wood and not dry up anywhere near as fast as water, and prevents rust. Seems ingenious. Have any of you had success with this? Obvious warning to keep pets away from the antifreeze.

 

[SeaJay]

Banging a nail or two into the wood from the top does the trick and no need to worry about it drying out quickly.

 

[bullwinkle]

They make little wedges for that!

 

[wavinwayne]

I'm going to try the AF trick on a ~hundred year old axe I've had laying around forever.

 

[Dave9]

Seems like a bit of a waste of time to me, I use the wedge nails and/or epoxy to fully reseat the head.

However on most of my hammers, they never dry out because I treat all wood handles' dings and end grain with boiled linseed oil, and leave a standing puddle on the head with the handle oriented vertical to let more of the oil soak down in.

 

[wavinwayne]

I'm going to hold off on the AF thing for now. The more I thought about it, the more reasons I came up with to not try it. I don't need the axe for anything near term, and it technically belongs to my FIL. He's not physically able to use it anymore, but still..

 

[Rick505]

When I was a kid, I recall an "oldtimer", what we called them in those days, said he used to dry out the new handles heads over a fire before fitting it in the new ax head. I suspect it would work for hammers, hatchets, etc. You dry it out as fully as possible as you fit it to the head and then there is nothing more to dry out. Well, very little anyway. If it absorbs water it would just be tighter I guess. Before anyone asks, yes I'm now an oldtimer now.

 

[oil pan 4]

Axes shouldn't be put in water and allowed to rust. If the handle is lose pound in more wedges or replace the handle with one that fits better.

 

[facility1]

if you have a loose head on a hammer or ax etc,hold the head down vertically, off the ground by hand, pound on the end of the handle with another hammer, the inertia of the impact will tighten the head to handle, then just cut or grind off excess wood that sticks out, this will thourghly tighten the head up to handle , adding a latex type sealer (paint) can help, or spray urethane is good also.

 

[wavinwayne]

I've decided to quietly put this old axe back in my FILs shed and let it be. I don't want to chance messing anything up on it, since it is his and folks can get odd about tools.