If there's a natural flare or knob on one end, shave down the other to a taper which fits the contour of the hammer eye as  closely as possible, leaving a flared out shoulder just under where the head will come to rest when driven on.  Remember to maintain as large a cross sectional area as possible above the hammer eye center (Fig.2).  The head should be driven on firmly (This is the one time when it's OK to rap the hammer, handle first, onto the anvil face, but put down a hardwood block first so as not to split or mash the end of the handle).  The wood extending above the head can then be cutoff as close to the head as possible.

    Next take a wood chisel as wide as the eye is long  and begin a split bisecting the handle showing through the eye from front to back (Fig.3).  With this split started, you can drive in a wedge, shaved from an old handle, far enough to fully fill the eye from side to side.  Shave this wooden wedge thicker at its base and longer than it will need to be and just keep driving it until it will go no further and breaks off.  Earlier, while working on the forge, you will have pointed the end of a 1/2" rebar, flattening it along its length to be very thin at the  tip and 3/16" at the base of the pointed section.  You will have then extended it 1/4" at a time over a sharp anvil edge while administering sharp blows (Fig.4) producing "barbs" to hold it in place before finally cutting it off over a hardy and quenching it.  Such wedges can be made between heats of larger projects and  only require 1 heat themselves.  These wedges, when cool, will be  driven into the handle at a diagonal as indicated in Fig.3.  This orientation creates greatest expansive forces front to rear, but also some side to side, supplementing the action of the wooden wedge.  Keep driving wedges in with a 4 lb. hammer until you can't get any more in--I mean it!  This having been completed, a right angle grinder can be used to dress any wood or iron making an unsightly  display.

    I believe that even greater safety could be had by using some of the composite/fiberglass handles on the market, though striking barehanded as I do, my hands have never found one that didn't give them blisters.

    Next time Frank takes us through the tantalizing topic of team tools with SLEDGE, Team Striking Part V: "Just Tooling Around".  Till then remember a sledge is just a cannonball with an earpierce!