Thank you guys for all the comments, been browsing through the forum; lots of good info here.
Papaw, honestly I personally wouldn't trust anything but hickory for any length of time with Ash a distant 2nd. Just my personal opinion. As far as these refinish projects go,.....it is purely for me to get some experience of working with this type of wood for some future projects I plan on doing. As long as I own this little axe it will be in my shop or man cave area sitting on a shelf. I don't think it could take a whole lot of abuse as it seemed to be really dried out when I was sanding on it. The blade appears to have never been sharpened.
Scott, thanks a million for the comments but when I tell you my "secret" I think your going to be disappointed. I live in Leitchfield, Ky and pick up this stuff wherever I can find it, mostly on-line. If I see anything with a reasonable amount of "curl" in it I get it to the house and start sanding to see what happens, lol. I don't have a wood working background and almost no experience with finishing wood until I started with this stuff. The last few years I've been carving a little bit, which led me to doing a powder horn ( had a curly maple plug in it), which led me to the desire to swing at doing a flintlock rifle sometime in my future. Thus I thought I should do some practice before doing all that work on a rifle stock and then "jacking-up" the finish.
Anyway to answer your question I don't have any secrets and glad to tell/show you my technique. I have spent to many hours in other forums getting great info from people not to share when someone ask me. The 2 pieces posted above were done following these video directions to the "T" without any variation-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBtfygy4cyII have some more pieces I'll try and post later.,,,,,,,,,,,
Thanks again, -Aaron C
