best rejuvenator for tool wooden handles?

[e9999]

I've got some older garden tools with wooden handles, some who have been left outside too long. Some of the handles show aging, dryness and minor surface cracking.
What do you think would be best to use to seal and reinforce (as in filling the crack with a bonding material) the wooden handles?

I've got the usual complement of wood stains (oil based and polymer based), linseed oils, danish oils, paints. glues etc etc.

plain oil stain works somewhat but does not really bond the cracks I think

thoughts?

 

[PAToyota]

If it is gone to the point of cracking I typically just replace the handle.

But to rejuvenate a wood handle, I usually soak it in boiled linseed oil or tung oil for awhile and then wipe it off.

 

[rockcrawler]

Minor cracks just use a wood filler, major replace. I have repaired splits in the past by applying super glue gell and holding them in a vise until dry, but I'd probably only do that with small tools.
Most garden tools seem to come with a very thin varnish that wears off quickly, if I have the time I sand it off and treat them with linseed oil straight away.
I recently refinished all my wood handled workshop hammers with tru-oil, great stuff. Use raw linseed oil on light coloured woods to bring out the grain and seal with tru-oil.

edit: for small cracks that I want to fill I mix tru-oil with glass powder into a paste. I make glass powder up by smashing old bottles under a rag and then run it through an old coffee grinder until it turns into powder. Lots of other uses for it too such as a fine polishing medium.

 

[e9999]

looking great!

glass powder...? fancy...

do linseed oil etc harden enough that they would provide some strength / bonding / crack filling you think?


FWIW, what I've done a few times with great success for split wooden handles is I dab some epoxy on, and then wrap a string or fine metal wire around the split over the epoxy which will of course drench it all. When it finally hardens I have a tight ligature in an epoxy matrix. Probably much stronger than the original bare wood. I've had one like that on a rake hold for 15 years and looks perfect. I tried recently with some of that gorilla glue, the type that's activated by water and foams a bit. A bit more lightweight but we'll see how long it holds.

 

[rockcrawler]

Tung, Linseed oil, raw or boiled does not go hard as such. It will stop the wood from drying out and provide some protection from moisture. Tru-oil which is a sort of improved boiled linseed oil will go hard and actually seal the wood completely, though for dry wood use your normal oils first as tru oil does not penetrate enough, its more of a top coat. The reason I use glass powder is because its a neutral colour and blends in to whatever wood I am filling. For large cracks I'd probably use something else. It really depends on how big the cracks you are trying to fill are.

Oh ok, for structural repairs use epoxy by all means. What I have described is only good for filling and has no strength as such. I have even embedded screws for extra strength with some things (as well as epoxy).

 

[e9999]

well, I ended up using some sort of oil sealant for decks that I had left over -forgot which- and it seemed OK, looked much better, and filled the cracks some but not sure if it did increase strength, probably not, but at least the wood got oiled.

However, while searching for this again as I would like to refinish a wooden sides trailer, again with cracked planks, I came across some products called "wood hardener" that seem to be just what I need. Seems like they do fill smaller cracks and harden the wood considerably. One highly rated is by PC products. About $60 a gallon at Home Depot. They also have another product that seems even stronger ("wood consolidator" or something like that) that looks epoxy based but that one is $200 a gallon. I really want something I can brush on for large surfaces, not have to apply with a putty knife and the first one at least, maybe both seem good for that. HTH.



added: well, I got some (Minwax) wood hardener to try out the concept. Basically, seems like this is urethane in some solvent that really penetrates the (dry) wood very well and then hardens. That it seems to do well, but it doesn't seem to fill the cracks much at all, well, at least when I tried without the wood being completely saturated. But maybe it penetrates the bottom of the crack and then prevents it from expanding. Just guessing, though. Plus come to think of it, one probably wants some flexibility in wooden tool handles anyway. So probably not the miracle product for handles either. (But may be great for a trailer floor where some hardness is not bad.) Back to the drawing board.
Not surprisingly, the better thing to do is keep oiling the things regularly and hope for no crack at all, but then of course I'd have to be organized and all that...

 

[bigdaddy1]

Sounds like a splinter waiting to happen for me. I would just replace the handles before they break on you....