First attempt at woodworking: Restoring my great grandfather's hatchet.

Here's the broken handle and the head. cTw is how my great grandfather did his initials (the fist, middle, last order is actually CWT). They are welded on, but I'm not sure what metal was used.

Finished product. Hickory handle finished with a Tung oil/varnish mix. The rust on the head was sanded away, polished up, and given a new edge. There are a couple small cracks and holes in the handle. The largest is at the base and is about a quarter inch deep and an inch and a half long. The rest are significantly smaller.

A close-up of the break. One of the younger guys broke the handle while clearing away some fallen trees on one of the paths out at our family's cabin.

Nothing stuck inside the head, so no need to drill anything out.

A closeup of the head before any sanding was done. Started out by sandblasting away the heavy rust, then used a circular sander, and finished it off on a polishing wheel. (there is no marking on the head to identify a brand)

Closeup after sanding. It was pitted heavily, though that's to be expected of something that's between 50 and 100 years old.

You can see one of the smaller cracks in the handle here. (I didn't notice any until after the tung oil had been applied)

We found a hickory log that was *fairly* straight in the log pile at the cabin.

The left over pieces of the log. Started by getting a flat edge, then cutting 3 more.

The core of the log, cutting it down to something more manageable with the table saw.

Sorry for the lack of pictures between this and the last one. The core piece was cut down to size, the old handle traced on, and cut out with a band saw. The rough cut was then sanded down with a belt sander, and touched up a bit by hand before it got here. From this point it was just smoothing out any really small bumps or imperfections by hand with a finer grit (I think 240).

Close-up of the kerf made by the band saw after the sanding was done. This portion was just sanded down slowly until the head of the axe went down far enough. By the time the head was put on the kerf went though about 3/4th's of the way down.

First coat of the Tung oil/varnish mix.

After the first coat the head was placed on and tamped down by holding the head and hitting the handle into a block of wood on the ground. The wedge was then driven in with a mallet. The wedge and exposed upper portion was sanded down to about 1/8th of an inch above the head.
*edit* I was informed that the way the grains align with the wedge is the opposite of how it is supposed to be! so this is okay for display but not for use, please make sure the grain runs parallel with the wedge if you're planning on making a handle for use!

Put on about 3 more coats of the tung oil/varnish mix here. I think it looks pretty good for a first attempt at something like this. I did have some help and supervision. (I'm 26, but my grandfather cut the tip of his middle and ring finger off a couple years ago so everyone was a bit nervous about me doing this without having someone watching.)

Would like to thank unclepatio's reddit post for giving me the idea when the hatchet broke.
reddit link: http://reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/1v5wc4/i_made_new_handle_for_my_refinished_axe/