Are any of you walkers???

[datzenmike]

After leaving work permanently last March due to co-vid I started walking to fill the time and for the exercise. Every morning till just before Christmas it was 5k or 3 miles but starting December I upped it to just over 8k or over 5 miles every day. Once or twice a week I add  an extra loop of 3, 4 or 5 extra k and often walk into town which is 10 k round trip (6 miles)

Early on I saw the benefit of a walking stick for the unmaintained goat paths some of these trails are. There are bears and cougars though the latter is very rare to meet, I would like to be around to tell of it. I feel more comfortable with something with weight and pointy end in my hands. The first one was a boughten one my wife got but never uses. It was too light and frail. As there are plenty of trees around I cut one and took it home. Peeled it and carved some grips on it and it warped as it dried, made some mistakes and learned but by the fourth try had something I liked. When I stained our fence I stained my stick and it came out alright.

 

This is a walking stick I made for a lady I meet infrequently while walking. She was using an old tree branch. I said I would put her name on it so she said I had to put mine on there somewhere so I gave the stick a name put hers on as the owner of the stick and made a little MIKE logo. Got a wood burning kit from Amazon ...

 

This is my old (gen 4) walking stick and by the end of this month will have at least 1,000 miles on it. 150 a month! I stained it and with what I learned making sticks for others burned a spiral ivy vine around it...

 

 

 

..and gave it a name. Experimenting with a Middle Earth, Lord of the Rings script..

 

 

Here's another for another lady friend I used to work with. This is the first one made from cedar for it's lightness. She's elderly and 5'3'' so this should be a good fit.

 

 

Has a double helix of ivy. This weekend I want to clear coat these last two walking sticks. My stain went on two months ago and was wearing thin so a protective clear coat might be what it needs.

 

 

 

If it was for myself, good enough... is good enough, but making one for others I try different things. Decorating is getting better.

[Mattndew76]

Nice stuff. I see very few custom traditional sticks on my hikes. Mostly the new aluminum and carbon setups. 

 

Nice burn work. 

[datzenmike]

I'm just fucking around. Is there a 'traditional' stick? What do home made or custom made sticks look like. Are there things similar on all of them? Like do the all have lanyards? The one I've just finished will have a leather lanyard with a decorative knot. I think this one...

 

 

I don't think I like them but, again this isn't for me, so I'm free to experiment.

[datzenmike]

Holy shit Matt, never thought to look on line!

 

 

 

 

Endless ideas!!!!

[paradime]

Great detail Mike. I LOVE working with natural materials like wood. I have one of those four section aluminum canes for visually impaired that I use as a walking stick. It's shorter than usual, but still lets people know I'm not drunk when I walk into stuff. I don't know if I'd go against a bear with it, but folded up it's about the size of a night stick, so it's a good thing to have on a BART train late at night.

[datzenmike]

We have black bears who are notoriously timid. No, I would not argue with one. The stick is for moral support also. I would run the other way. I have made them from alder and Douglas fir also.

 

I built a plastic tube steamer with an electric kettle and just for fun tried to bend a walking cane. It was going quite well but there was the inevitable knot and it split. I would need straight grained wood for this. Maybe a bought shovel handle? With this I could straighten branches that are always bent. I ran into a fellow walker in WallMart and his stick was bowed but had carved flowers and leaves! It was also made from a Yew branch. (taxis brevifolia) It grows at higher elevation requiring a road trip but has incredible caramel colored heart wood, is strong and heavy! Too bad it was so curved, but I think I could straighten it. Another is the common hawthorn but they don't grow very straight for very far. I'm always looking. Another thought to try is to take a reasonably straight stick and steam bend it around a metal pipe so the bottom half is a spiral or helix. 

 

 

[Mattndew76]

My former neighbor had a custom stick made with a .410 shotgun tube in it for a happen chance he might come across a grouse for his supper. 

 

I do like what you got going Mike.

[datzenmike]

16 hours ago, datzenmike said:

Holy shit Matt, never thought to look on line!

 

 

 

 

Endless ideas!!!!

 

To be clear these are from images on line. Had no idea this was out there.

[KELMO]

This is some cool shit. Seems as though Missus Kelmo came home with something akin to this stuff.

Now I gotta go rummage through the garage. Pretty sure I tripped over the damn thing last week.

[paradime]

Look for inspiration everywhere, but always do your thing. I'll admit though, I cringed when you suggested using a store bought shovel handle. This is only my opinion, but the lifeless consistency and brute force perfection of industrial production is the antithesis of objects hand crafted from natural materials. What makes your canes exciting for me is they're found on your walks in nature.

 

Again my personal subjective opinion, for me even bending out a found stick's natural curve would feel a bit disrespectful. I think tuning in to find just the right stick, and celebrating it's perfect imperfection would be a more satisfying challenge. 

 

On mater what direction you take, please keep the picts coming.

[KELMO]

The stick I mentioned. About 40" to "42"(should do metric being DM's thread and what not) or 102 to 107mm.

A little of the detail.

Not even a heavy stick at all. Asked the Missus where it came from. Says it was an impulse buy at a craft show in the past couple weeks. Now, mostly what we got round these parts are bull snakes, rattlers, and the occasional coyote. I would have to go a bit west, 10-15 miles to find something good at a higher elevation. We live at about 6500 feet.

 

Think DM was talking about using a shovel handle for straightening. Could be wrong as I am a bit into the bottle at this point.

[datzenmike]

The shovel handle would be only for the knot less wood. Seems easy enough to find. I lieu of this a hard wood board sawn to  a little over 1" square then use a spoke shaver to whittle it down till nearly round. The idea was to try steam bending a J shaped handle on a walking cane. If a shovel handle, it would never end up obviously a shovel handle. 

 

Yes when walking there is time to think and look around in the woods for interesting natural shapes. I have a friend with a car and some time. Maybe we could go up into the nearby foothills and try to find some Yew. I saw some years ago near the reservoir while working in the forest.

 

KELMO...was that carved from a much thicker piece or bent? Cool.

[grannyknot]

Here's a walking cane I hope I won't need for a long time but when I do, no ones going to fuck with this old man.  The anvil is made out of 1/8" plate so it's not as heavy as it looks, the ferrule on the bottom is a spare socket.

 

[KELMO]

That's not a walking stick, that's fucking crowd control.🤪

[chukar]

I did some steam bending when I built a wooden boat.  It will be easier to bend if you rip the piece into a bunch of thinner strips and than glue (or epoxy) the strips together while bending it over a form.  The thinner strips of wood make it much easier to bend.

Edited September 6, 2021 by chukar
spelling of epoxy

[datzenmike]

I got a length of 3" plastic conduit pipe for underground electrical lead in to a house. Two end caps with step drill holes and glues in fittings, some heater hose and a $5 electric kettle. Also have a shorter one with holes at each end so only a 2' length of the stick is heated to take bends out. Haven't tried that yet. The large one I want to wrap the softened stick around a form into a spiral. I was watching a you tube about the US Navy bending oak for motor launches. Their formula was one hour for ever inch of thickness. 

 

Grannyknot I saw one like that but it had a ball peen hammer head on the end.

[datzenmike]

I have 4 coats of clear on the give away stick. When it's dry enough to touch I'll bring indoors where it's warmer overnight.

[grannyknot]

26 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

Grannyknot I saw one like that but it had a ball peen hammer head on the end.

That would be this guy, he's made a business out of it, https://www.instagram.com/hammercane/

[paradime]

4 hours ago, datzenmike said:

The shovel handle would be only for the knot less wood.

 

Got it. Maple doesn't take kindly to bending. Willow, ash, birch, hickory or elm all bend well, but you'd never bend a solid piece tight enough for a handle. I'd take Chukars advice and stack glue thin strips around a jig. I've bent super hard woods like Ipe for deck handrails and a white oak rail on my spirit stairs that way.

[datzenmike]

See, you're already way ahead of me. The extreme bend would only be for a J cane and I was only curious to try making one. For a long walking staff or stick any bend would be minor, and mostly to straightening them. I'll keep this in mind thanks.

[KELMO]

11 hours ago, datzenmike said:

 

KELMO...was that carved from a much thicker piece or bent? Cool.

Really have no idea but I think carved.

[jagman]

If you plan to do steam bending start with green wood.  It will bend much more easily than dried without splitting.  Ship builders of yore used this process to form the ribs of ships that were quite heavy timbers,  The jigs they used would start the bend after steaming, then a second jig was applied to continue the bend after a second steaming.

The third jig would over bend after a third.  When the rib dried out they removed the third jig and the timber would spring back slightly to the desired curve.

[datzenmike]

In the last 31 days I've averaged 5.3 miles per day. That's 265km or 164.99 miles. Usually it's 150 a month.

 

Can anyone identify this plant? It's only 5-6 feet tall and may be a bush or tree when mature. It's not native to my location but may be a garden escapee. It's on the side of a tail so the seed could have fallen off hikers boots. It's an old logging road and has been closed to motorized vehicles for many years. It looks to be up to 5 years old. Never seen the like before. Looked but can't find evidence of flowers or fruit/seeds. It's definitely out of place where it is.

 

 

 

 

[MikeRL411]

19 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

In the last 31 days I've averaged 5.3 miles per day. That's 265km or 164.99 miles. Usually it's 150 a month.

 

Can anyone identify this plant? It's only 5-6 feet tall and may be a bush or tree when mature. It's not native to my location but may be a garden escapee. It's on the side of a tail so the seed could have fallen off hikers boots. It's an old logging road and has been closed to motorized vehicles for many years. It looks to be up to 5 years old. Never seen the like before. Looked but can't find evidence of flowers or fruit/seeds. It's definitely out of place where it is.

 

 

 

 

 

Sumac ?

[datzenmike]

Not the sumac I'm used to.