It’s that time of year where the garden tools need maintenance, especially the handles. I have a wide variety of garden tools, ranging from a rediscovered ancient mattock, probably unused for decades, with a bone-dry, splintering hickory handle, to fresh new additions with the annoying polyurethane-varnished handles.
I prefer to treat my wooden handles with linseed oil. For the old, unmaintained handles, that means sanding them down first. For the new, PU-coated tools, that means removing the varnish and then sanding them down.
I am not remotely skilled at woodworking. However, I would like to know if there is a way to use an oscillating (or random orbital) palm sander to quickly sand down my handles with a minimum input of elbow grease. I could have sworn that I saw a YouTube video once where a restorer used some sort of adapter to a palm sander to make the sanding surface suitable for sanding a cylinder like a long tool handle. Does anyone know what this sort of adapter is called, or have any suggestion?
Secondly, I need to strip that polyurethane varnish off my new tools. Using a knife or a planer feels like it will remove too much wood and take too much skill. Is there any reason I can’t just sand it off and skip a step?
As for sanding I don’t do much of it but if doing handles I grab a piece of 60 or 80 grit and wrap it around the handle and run it back and forth a few times. You can be soaking the wood in linseed oil while you’re doing it.
There are sandpaper disc bits for drills. Works great on taking handles to barewood. Not real long lasting though. Not a big deal if you tend to use only a few tools.
This is a picture of the underside on my Stanley 60 spokeshave, which is useful for both flat and curved surfaces. I use it for the exact purpose of removing the cheap polyurethane that wooden replacement tool handles are covered in. I have a bevy of other tools that come into play if I am creating a handle from scratch, but the spokeshave and a belt sander with 60 grit sandpaper are usually all I need before I apply tung oil (not tung oil FINISH) to my tool handles, which is my preferred polymerizing oil rather than Boiled Linseed Oil (BLO).
the straight one works equally well for most purposes. Unless youre trying to create a large radius, very little of the blade is in contact with the work regardless of if the blade is straight or curved.
Surprisingly enough, I would actually suggest to locate the more readily available straight blade spokeshave for most purposes, including rounded surfaces like tool handles. Unless you are making something dedicated like a dowel rod you will be able to accomplish the same end result about as easily.
The small shops that deal in semi-antiquities are a good place to look. That’s where I found my drawknife and my froe.
I like the color that it imparts to the wood, how it feels, smells and protects. I discovered that it was used quite a bit during WW2 and following from some friends and have been using it ever since. I do like to speed up the curing process in most cases.
i came across a video of a ol’ timer that used pine oil cut 50/50 with boiled linseed on his axes and garden tools. i liked the color it imparted so i found some at T.S.C used as a hoof conditioner for horses. treated all my tools. set them out in the sun to cure. it was one of the very 1st wood handle preservatives and leaves a nice feel to the wood once cured in the sun.
I have sanded many round things with an electric/battery powered sander. You just need to consistently and slowly move around the spot where you’re sanding. It’s easier if you can clamp the sander and move the handle against it.
You can sand off most finishes easily. Depending on the varnish it might be tough at first - but I’m guessing for a tool handle, the varnish is nothing special and it will sand off easily.
I dread using paint stripper because it’s sooooo tedious and awful and gross. Sanding is much easier, even if it’s more time consuming. When I do need to use a paint stripper, I wear a respirator (with a vapor cartridge) and use citri-strip. If you use a paint stripper, use some tool you don’t care about to do the scraping bit.
Thank you @benthegirl. @marten, that is something I neglected to mention. I lay a small old towel across the opening of the bench vise and clamp the top handle of the belt sander in place but with the belt facing upwards. I engage the trigger lock button and just work the wooden tool handle across the moving belt as necessary. The towel is just to prevent damage to the sander and provide better grip between it and the vise.
