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The type and age of the wood make a BIG difference. I still have it - it is so durable, that when i accidentally shut it in a car's door, the door sustained a good deal more damage than did the staff. Later, i made one from a piece that had seasoned for two years. Unbelievable, i've never seen anything like it. The next day, it had so many cracks, it looked a bit like rope. I will add that, for example, having made a lot of staves, when i had less experience, i attempted to make a staff out of hornbeam (Carpinus Caroliniana), a wonderful wood - i seasoned it, bark on for four months, then went to work, roughed it out and de-barked it. I strip them, sand them lightly, and then oil them and they are beautiful that way, I love them! I usually put rubber feet on the bottom of mine and sometimes drill a hole near the top for a lanyard.
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I don't use anything on my sticks besides Danish Oil.
Hand carved walking canes crack#
If I bring a stick inside, even if it has bark still on, it will usually crack for me because my place is very dry. I don't get cracks in the ends if I do it this way. Vt), what works best is to harvest the birch in the fall or winter when it isn't as metabolically active, to strip the bark pretty soon after cutting it down, and then to let it cure outside somewhere protected from rain for a few months. I found that for me, in my 5b climate (s. The methyl salicylate in the bark smells heavenly while you're working with it! It has good strength and flexibility and it's got beautiful creamy shimmery wood below that fragrant bark. This is a pretty good how-to, thank you for posting it! My favorite wood for walking sticks is Betula lenta, or Sweet Birch.
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It is fun to experiment with different kinds of wood and see which ones work for you and which ones you like. Douglas maple, birch, alder, saskatoon, willow and aspen all fit in this category. Also, many of the hardwood saplings that grow in the ditches etc., are considered to be weeds and there is no problems with cutting them down. I do not encourage people to make sticks out of coniferous saplings because they usually have a lot of pitch which will create problems. Hardwoods are what we call deciduous, which mostly lose their leaves in the fall and don't have cones, though some, alders for example, have cones, and others, arbutus leaps to mind, don't lose their leaves in the fall. The trees called softwoods are the ones that are called coniferous, or what we usually call in Canada "evergreens" though some of them do not stay green all year round (larches and tamaracks for example). Balsa, the softest wood in the world is a hardwood. Some hardwoods are softer than some softwoods. It is helpful to let the stick dry a bit before doing extensive woodburning on it. More moisture means more shrinkage and more cracking (usually called "checking"). Stick that are cut in the fall or winter will crack less as they dry because there is less moisture in them and therefore less to come out. Most types of wood are asier to carve when they are wet. I often carve faces into the sticks while they are quite wet. Some types of maple, (sugar maple for example) are very hard and probably aren't the best choice for sticks that will have faces carved in them. What is happening is the same as the discoloration of an apple after it is bitten into. If you carve alder, you will notice that the inner bark and the outer bit of the wood will turn very red quite quickly after being cut. Also, if someone wanted to try their hand at carving some kind of pattern in the wood, should that be done immediately (while still green), or should you wait until the wood has been well-dried? RW: The color of the inner bark is very Dependant upon the species. Q: I'm guessing the color of dried inner bark could be different depending on whether it's a softwood or hardwood. I've also seen some people put a crutch tip on the bottom, like in this instructable. Q: How do you recommend protecting the end that goes into the ground so that it doesn't split? A: If you rounded it, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't split. Key: Q: Question A: My Answer RW: Rick Wiebe (What Master Whittler/Carver Rick Wiebe Says) Q: Do you know what kind of wood it is that you're using? A: The wood I'm using is paper birch.
Hand carved walking canes free#
Feel free to ask questions in the comments section.