# Recent sticks



## Rodney (Jun 12, 2015)

I do make a few sticks. I'm not ALL talk. It's about time I posted my more recent ones.

Here's the sticks I've been making since around the first of the year.

I may have to break this up a bit.

First up: One stick I picked back in fall would beg me to be a bird every time I looked at it. I don't carve. I don't feel I'm particularly artistic and I'm not set up for it. I tried to tell the stick that. It didn't listen and didn't care. "I want to be a bird." It kept saying.

I finally got tired. "Fine. Whatever. You can be a bird. Don't say I didn't warn you."







Like I said. There's reasons I don't carve.

It's about shoulder height and is a limb from a downed poplar at a local cemetery. I talked with a volunteer caretaker at the cemetery before I gathered any sticks. The cemetery is technically abandoned. He told me it was ok to take what wood I wanted. Due to the abandoned status there's really no one to officially give or deny permission. I gathered several sticks from there over the last winter.

This next one is more poplar from the same cemetery.



The handle was attached at a fork in the limb.





A close-up of the ferrule. This is what I've pretty much settled on. A short piece of copper pipe or a connector with a rubber tip made from a rubber bottle stopper. There's a screw going through the stopper to secure it to the cane.



I'm not completely happy with the final product. I got the angle of the handle wrong so it slopes down just a bit when the tip is flat on the floor. While I know a straight stick is much stronger, I just couldn't resist the multiple doglegs in this one.

This Holly stick was growing just outside the fence of the same cemetery between it and a railroad track. It's the first of two blanks I got from this sapling. This one was more fun with doglegs. The handle is carved from the rootball and is my first attempt at a cardigan handle.







I'm not quite done. I still have to add the rubber tip. I really like the way this one turned out. I think it will probably be my favorite stick so far when I'm finished.

I still have a couple more to post. I'll do those in a reply here.

Thanks for looking,

Rodney


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## Rodney (Jun 12, 2015)

This stick is my current favorite and has been getting the most use. It's another stick that came down in the last winter's storms. It's either a top or a sucker from a birch tree growing here in Centralia.





I knocked the worst of the lichens off and made the handle from the cut off portion of the branch. I used a clear spray on finish and a wedged mortise and tenon joint like on an axe or hammer to secure the handle to the shank. My daughter hates this stick. She tells me it's ugly. I told her it's rustic. Her reply: "What's that? Another word for ugly?"

Ugly or not, I do get compliments on it and I make sure to tell her when I do. :lol:

This is the last of my finished sticks. I used it a lot before I finished my birch one. It was really good for when I was able to graduate from crutches to just a stick. I'm now getting to where I can get around the house without a stick at all but I still use one for going out in public.

It's nothing too exciting. Just a reasonably straight stick from a cottonwood tree with a leather thong attached.



That's it for now.

Thanks for looking,

Rodney


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## cobalt (Nov 14, 2013)

I do like the stylizd bird , a stylied item shows artistic temprement it may be simple but there oftren the best loking , some sticks can easily br overworked .The cardigan handle is a nice piece of wood ,but iwould be temoted to cut it of and fix it to a straight shank, Its a personal thing i hate dog legged sticks . but the handle shows great promise. keep posting the pics.


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## LilysDad (Sep 25, 2014)

I like the bird as well. For someone with no artistic talent, your quite a cartoonist. :thumbsu:


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## MJC4 (Mar 6, 2014)

Hey great job on the bird stick! Do not sell yourself short you do have talent as the bird stick shows as well as your others. Keep up the good works. Suggestion, try practice whittling on small pieces to get the feel for carving then progress up to your sticks and canes. If you mess up a small piece you haven't wasted a good stick.

Great job on all the pieces! :thumbsu:


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## Batakali (Feb 28, 2016)

Nothing wrong with a good ugly stick! I love the bird! I see a great multi-purpose hiking stick.


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## Rodney (Jun 12, 2015)

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Stylized and cartoonish is ok. Stylized doesn't need to look like anything real and the bird was fun to make. Just don't expect anything even approaching a realistic animal from me. That is far beyond my capabilities.

I do like the British aesthetic and mostly I prefer a straight or at least reasonably straight stick. I do have a couple straight sticks that will work well with the bark on once they're dry. Straight sticks are stronger and the stick needs to be functional first. A straight stick is also much easier to work with. The poplar one had enough doglegs in such a small area that I decided it would be a fun one to make. It's hard to ignore a stick with that much going on.

The holly stick's rootball's main mass lined up almost perfectly with the dogleg so I decided to try making a stick where the handle ended up roughly centered above the bottom tip kind of like we see on aluminum canes here. I think it worked out fairly well.

Here's a before picture. The holly stick is on the right. The peeled stick on the center left is the bird stick.



Rodney


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## RandyL476 (Aug 24, 2014)

Good looking sticks.


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## Gloops (Jan 23, 2015)

some great looking natural sticks and yes the bird is great will turn a few heads when taking it out for a wald, well done.


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## CV3 (Jan 30, 2014)

Nice group of sticks Rodney. The natural shapes have their own charm.


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## Crook (Aug 13, 2016)

Rodney said:


> A close-up of the ferrule. This is what I've pretty much settled on. A short piece of copper pipe or a connector with a rubber tip made from a rubber bottle stopper. There's a screw going through the stopper to secure it to the cane.


Boy is that a more straightforward way to do it! Rubber directly into a coupling. I've been trying out different ways of using copper without having it take direct shock from striking the ground. Similar to what I settled on but yours is cleaner and more efficient. Will be taking notes from this.


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## Rodney (Jun 12, 2015)

I turn the stoppers to fit the ferrules. I like to leave the outer diameter bigger than the ferrule. That little extra diameter adds a lot to the stability of the cane but still isn't as clunky looking as a crutch tip. I figure I have between two and three dollars in each tip.

Next time I put one together I'll post some pictures of how I make them.

Rodney


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## BigDaddy (Aug 21, 2016)

I would like to see that


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## Paul2281 (Apr 10, 2013)

What a cool set of sticks dude.Great work....


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