Chainsaw sharpening time

I recently bought some new files to sharpen my chainsaw. They seem nice, but they came without handles. Fortunately I happened to have an unmilled short slab of mahogany lying around in my shop that needed a sense of purpose.

Design and ergonomics

To get an idea of what I wanted to make, I grabbed my favorite chisel, and used it as a rough measurement and plan for what I was going to make. Since I don't own a lathe (yet...), this would all be carving and smoothing by hand.

The build

First I started my planing down part of the slab to get a smooth finish to work with. After I put some quick marking lines on it, I cut out a few handle blanks.

I drilled a hole in one end to receive the file tang. I tried to taper the hole by using a few different size drill bits, since I don't want this to split when I tap in the file, but I also want it to fit snugly.

I finished rough shaping with the drawknife, and smoothed the rest of it with sandpaper. Once it was nice and smooth, I tapped the handle into place using my wooden mallet.

For a finish, I just used a liberal coating of boiled linseed oil. Linseed oil is one of my favorite finishes for things in the shop.

I intentionally experimented with slightly different shapes for the handles to see if there was a grip I liked better than others.

Mistakes

Not too many mistakes were made in this build since it was pretty straightforward, but I figured I might as well list things I wasn't perfectly happy with.

• Holes were not perfectly centered
• Files were not perfectly in line with grip on all axes