When I was in high school, we camped for years with an old man who made axe handles and any other kind of handle anyone might want, including wheelbar handles and boat paddles.
He would cut nice straight hickory trees about a foot in diameter or a little bigger. Cut them to length for whatever size handle, then split them like narrow bow staves. He called it white hickory, but I remember it had longer narrower leaves than pig nut has. Those woods have all been clear cut and planted with pines since.
He would tie any extra pieces into bundles and soak them in the slough until he was near ready to work them, which wouldn't take long to turn the whole tree into handles. He used a double bit axe on the green wood and would rough shape the handles to near finished dimensions then finish them with a case pocket knife. The process went very fast and he could make a dozen handles a day while running traps and skinning and drying hides, and installing the handles for customers who would bring their tools to him in the woods at our camp and drop them off. I don't remember exactly how many a day he made but it was quite a lot. After whittling, he scraped them smooth and would hang them in tree limbs to finish drying.
I remember an axe handle to be $3 installed. The grain ran straight from end to end and his shaving pile where mostly really long large size shavings that just seemed to peel off almost effortlessly with his case pocket knife. The handles he made where no doubt some of the finest available at that time and people came from all over the place, out to our camp to buy them, or have theirs replaced.
I got carried away here, your post brought back so many good memories of that old man and our hunting camp with handles, and hides hanging all in the trees like ornaments. Sorry! but Thanks!
If you have any specific questions, my old memory may be able to remember enough to answer.
