You mention wood shrinking and expanding throughout different seasons. That’s absolutely true, however my process for dealing with this is right before I hang the axe head, I heat up a pot of sand on top of the wood stove and warm a small cup of linseed oil. I  bury the top of the axe handle, the wedge, and bury the axe head eye in the sand (keep the edge out of the sand) for about 5-10 minutes, not long enough to burn it or crack it, just long enough to make sure everything is pretty hot and  the top of handle and wedge is DRY as a bone. Then quickly, (you have to move fast) I remove the handle and while it’s still hot,  put the axe head over the handle and hammer the bottom of the axe handle with a dead blow hammer to seat it as far as it’ll go, next  I pour warm linseed oil in the eye over (imagine the eye being a cup, before you put the wedge In just fill up the cup), after that I dip the wedge in the warm linseed oil as well and hammer away, as far it’ll go, I start with a dead blow or wooden mallet, but as it goes further and further I’ll use a small metal sledge, it doesn’t matter if the wedge cracks although it usually doesn’t. Then I wipe the axe handle down with linseed but I wait about an hour before wiping any of the oil off the eye of the axe. I let it soak and absorb. Never once had an axe head even think about coming loose and even the ones I keep by the stove in the winter.  My though being that if you make sure the axe is as dry as it’ll ever be when you hang it there’s no way it can dry out and come lose later down the line. I also tend to use walnut wedges as the look nice but are also soft enough to compress and absorb a lot of oil. Although recently I’ve started to use a wood called China berry, real opened grain and easy to compress but strong enough to really take a pounding without breaking. One oiled it has a deep red color that looks nice. Never used a metal wedge before. Oh and also after the axe is hung, I give the eye a generous squirt of some stuff called “Swell-lock”. It’s super absorbent to wood fibers and causes them to swell up and expand. It’s original use was to tighten up lose chair rungs. If you follow these steps I promise you’ll never have an axe head even think about coming lose.

First time I've heard a discussion on tool wedges.  It's usually overlooked.
Interesting ending questions on an adjustable wedge and wedge grain direction.

Good one Kev. I think the hardwood/softwood debate is kinda funny. I believe you should match the wedge material to compliment the handle material.
I use a different wedge depending if the handle is Ash, Hickory, Birch, Red Elm, Osage, etc. Generally I use a harder wood wedge on softer wood handles and a softer wedge on harder handles.
Certain woods work well together and give exellent compression and a mechanical lock if they compliment each other in the right way.
The best example I have found of this is a Yellow Birch wedge on a White Ash handle. Beautiful compression and the grain of the two woods tend to marry each other and lock in hard.
I personally dislike adding a metal wedge to a virgin hang. If the wood wedge isn't secure enough, then you are doing it wrong IMO, but I understand someone adding one as extra security(belt AND suspenders)
Also, I think its far too common for most in the community to pay so much attention to their compression at the top and and not enough attention gaining that same compression at the bottom of the eye. The wedge can really only act on the top 2/3, the bottom 1/3 of the eye often doesn't get the attention it needs, especially by those more concerned with the beauty of their hang and not the function.
Just my $0.02, keep up the content brother!

Also, regarding grain direction in the wedge, I think it would matter because wood expands and contracts more in certain grain directions. Same thing would apply with your softwood wedges having thicker rings, thicker rings will expand and contact more than tighter grain.

"It needed 2" lol, savage

interesting fact about gransfors is that they use a pneumatic press to press in the wooden wedge instead of hammering it by hand. So it really goes in there (mentioned in their axe booklet)

In addition, I've read that they get the axe handle to a low moisture content before hanging, to make it less likely we run into the issue of dry winters causing loose axe heads. Makes alot of sense actually, so the axe handle is just super snug in the summer when the handle swells a bit rather than loose in the winter.

I just made an axe handle from Osage. Super hard wood that’s really hard to cut. I watched this video to try and decide a wedge for it. I’m surprised the Osage wedges behave like a soft wood. Thanks for the info.

15:50 maybe you could insert a concrete anchor (drop in anchor) into the end of the handle. They expand as they are tightened, but I doubt the actual area that "expands when tightened" will be the point where you want to increase  the tightness, or expand enough to be effective, unless you had a couple of those inserts set at different depths...

Do you have a video on top tips on how to fit barrel wedges?

Just a plumber here, no Tesla. Concrete anchors with lead sleeves work almost exactly the way you’re describing your perfect wedge similar to drywall anchors that spread whenever you install them.  Sure is too soft, but if someone were to make the same thing out of a different material, even brass, it would probably work fantastic.

Haha the wedge you're dreaming of might just be...a concrete anchor! Anyways, great video; I learnt something and I got to laugh.

Thanks so much man!! Been watching countless videos trying figure this out, n you covered it all. Really appreciate it! Think I’ll stop delaying now n hang the damn thing ❤

Great vid (dunno why I didn't say that before), covered the topic very well.Just rewatching this and caught your question on wedge grain. I'll use whichever but I've noticed problems that can happen with both directions and in both soft and hardwoods. With wedge grain parallel with the eye: the wedge can split along the grain and fold over, necessitating replacement. Also more likely to shear up the wedge sides when driven against the sharp edge of the kerf.With perpendicular grain: it can still split but at least you can ram down the sections with a metal punch. A good trick is to make sure your kerf is open enough, and chamfer the kerf edges. No glue, and I agree hultafors barrels are the go if you need some metal in there.

Theoretically you could use a screw along with one of those wall anchors that expands out as you tighten the screw down.

Dude. Great video. Lots of knowledge. Exactly what I was looking for. You explained everything. Thanks

funny thing historically elm was used for axe handles in place of hickory here in Scotland since hickory didn't grow here but ash wood was the most dominant as tool handle wood.

i came here just looking for more info on wedges, but 1 minute in suddenly i’m a subscriber

Excellent video! Very in-depth and comprehensive. Thanks

I’m developing strategy to hang cool old axe head, no experience to speak of, and (my) common sense tells me - hardwood wedge, have some black walnut…what I couldn’t find so far is logic addressing both the wedge width and  depth in relation to the  Kerf. It makes sense that you’d want to seat the wedge as close as possible to the bottom of the cut, therefore reducing the amount of empty space there.
So consequently I plan on making several wedges and measuring wedge vs Kerf depth so once the wedge is down and not moving-sinking anymore, I hopefully end up with minimal amount of air inside the eye.
Thoughts anyone?

I have just started using the barrel wedge and really like the fit it gives. I also just received my first Killinger handle and the craftmanship is second to none.