Thanks for the nice comments, it turned out better than I expected.Talisman - I won't need the spare handle but thanks for your help, I made the handle much shorter and got it to fit. I don't think I will ever splice and fit the handle myself again, doing it with hand saws was difficult to say the least. I made a crude jig to align the saw but it still needed cleaning up.
handling is a right pain in the ass with anything other then table saw thingy