Walking sticks

 When I was a kid I would find sticks that just felt good in my hand.
Because I was a kid, I usually couldn't keep them.
Now I have a many many sticks drying in my basement while I plan my next move.

I just yesterday saw some walking sticks going for $65 each.
I have some hand tools,lots of power tools,  I'm an inveterate scavenger and a compulsive maker.  

I would like to hear from folks who have carved walking sticks for fun or profit.

William - most "found" walking sticks won't pass commercial standards without additional work. As a starting point, look into what is required to straighten a stick. Steam bending is commonly used, because found sticks are rarely truly straight.

William Bronson wrote:  Now I have a many many sticks drying in my basement while I plan my next move.

I just yesterday saw some walking sticks going for $65 each.
I have some hand tools,lots of power tools,  I'm an inveterate scavenger and a compulsive maker.  

I would like to hear from folks who have carved walking sticks for fun or profit.

Dear hubby made walking sticks out of cedar because they have a nice variation in coloring.

I sold them on eBay for him.

The way I price things to sell was to look at what others were selling for and price mine lower.

For us, the walking sticks cost almost nothing so I could sell them for whatever price I wanted plus shipping.

Shipping was the challenge for getting boxes to ship them in so the shipping charges would be low.  

Thank you Anne, this is the kind of thing I had in mind.
What kind of finishes did he use on the sticks?
I've seen some brightly colored ones sold,  but I'm  suspicious they won't look good if they see actual use.

He used a clear finish so the color of the wood came through.

I can only assume it was a varnish.

Michael Cox wrote:William - most "found" walking sticks won't pass commercial standards without additional work. As a starting point, look into what is required to straighten a stick. Steam bending is commonly used, because found sticks are rarely truly straight.

I can't compete against a commercial standard.
It's the arts/crafts market I'm interested in.
Unique looks are better than usefulness.
The more gnarly the stick the better .
I will be striving for durability,  but that's just basic quality control.

Straightening is as much about increasing your available material - pieces you might discard become viable if straightened.

The one's dear hubby made look similar to these:


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After dear hubby had been in the hospital he made some walking sticks for us to use when hiking, mainly to be doing something.

People saw them and wanted one so that is how we got started.

When I was selling walking sticks on eBay the ones that were selling like hotcakes were ones that looked like they hat been made out of vines.  These are the best images I could find on Pinterest:


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Around here that is caused by clematis. It's a vine that wraps tightly around stems as they grow, then dies off and leaves the marks behind. We collect them frequently on the hazel in our woods.

They can still be steam straightened without losing the vine-wrapped effect.

My Grandaddy had one cane made from cherry. It was all one piece, about an inch and a half in diameter. There was a repeated pattern carved into it the length of the shaft, with a rounded handle at the top that looked like a finial. It was beautiful, he saved it for church and special occasions.

I like character over uniformity. If people want a perfect walking stick they can get a broom handle at the dollar store.

(The steam straightening thing is fascinating though. Definitely has possibilities!)

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but for natural, as-found walking sticks, which I have been cutting in the bush since I was a kid, there is always a sweet spot in the way they hang and swing. Sometimes it aligns with a natural handle, but not always. It's not only the gnarled shapes: many natural woods grow slightly oval depending on sun exposure. There's an art to making a sweet walking stick.

BTW Saskatoon/serviceberry is my first choice for walking/whacking sticks, hands-down. Dry it with the bark on. Also 100% sustainable, because the root system just kicks up new walking sticks.

I tend to stick to walking sticks of my own creation.  While I admit I am fairly tall, my primary frustration with commercial walking sticks is that they are not tall enough.  This has less to do with my height and is more connected with their usefulness when walking down hill on irregular terrain.

I don't know that I would go to the trouble of straightening a walking stick. Ever since I got a pair of lightweight telescoping trekking poles, I have a renewed appreciation for shock absorption (thanks to a decades-old RSI that affects my wrists and forearms). I now look for sticks that have a bit of a twist or, ideally, an S curve. If I choose well, they bend just enough to flex on impact and transmit less of the ground information to my upper body. Your mileage may vary, of course. Some folks might want the reassurance of something as rigid as a steel box section.

@John F Dean.

True. It also depends on how they are intended to be held, as a walking staff or a European alpenstock.

A walking staff is gripped in a loose hammer grip, about the same height as the walker's forearm at horizontal on a flat surface. The grip is changed depending on up or down terrain.

An alpenstock is sort of centred on the palm of the hand, much lower, and simply marks time on level terrain. Downhill, it provides controlled deceleration, pushing forward. Uphill, it provides controlled acceleration, pushing to the back, or on very steep slopes, held as a walking staff.

The adjustable ski pole that lives in my car does both; the proven settings are marked with a Sharpie. It turns me into a more stable tripod and lets me take pressure off the trick-knee-of-the-week at critical moments, preventing injury. But of course it is industrial and ugly to the aesthetically tuned eye.

I watched that video-I don't know if I want to straiten wood, but bending wood with a steamer seems very useful!
The steam cylinder is made of duct, I wonder if PVC would work, I have a lot of that.

I have aspen trees along the fence line of my property. They are prolific producers of unwanted runners. In the spring I'll take a piece of conduit or pvc pipe and twist the runner around the pipe. By the end of that season I have a nicely twisted piece of wood that I cut off and give to kids at a local festival we have as magic wands. If left for more than one season it would be big enough for a walking stick. I have a Canadian chokecherry that grows rapidly as well. Branches that I know I will be pruning in the future I will weave/braid them with another branch and get a similar effect. I have put big marbles in the braid and it becomes trapped when the branches fuse. The branches and runners will be cut/pruned at somepoint anyway but an hour fiddling with them once a month creates what could be a profit stream.

Agree that vine-wrapped sticks confer artistic presence (as well as provide a nice hand-grip). I draw-knife off the bark, fine-trim around the vines, wood-glue the vines carefully into their slots (if they can be lifted, cleaned under, so much the better), differentially stain (if drawknifing something like Carpinus, the recessed areas which retain a bit of cambium? stain dark, and the protrusive areas with no such layer remain light), and polyurethane. Very durable finish. Finally, cap the tip with a hose-clamp (prevents splitting, but allows a trifle of mushrooming beyond for cushioning). Around here (NJ) sweet gum wrapped with honeysuckle or bittersweet is most common, though not the strongest. A bonus is finding grape-counterwrapped (it winds the other direction). Will email pix directly on request (don't have on a url). -- Stan de Riel, Hamilton, NJ stanton.deriel@yahoo.com

William, I am a wood carver just across the line in Indiana. There is a wood carving club in Cincinnati  https://cincicarversguild.tripod.com
There is also the Miami Valley Wood Carvers in the Middletown area near you that usually has a carving show in March. See if you can find out when & where these clubs meet. They love to have newbies show up...If you strikeout with those 2 clubs, the Whitewater Valley Wood Carvers meet in Connersville Indiana (about an hour from you) on Monday nights 6 to 8 pm at the Whitewater Valley Arts association 402 Central Ave.
Dayton also has a big carving club

William, Middletown carving show is March 4-5. 10:00-5:00 Sat...12:30-5:00 Sun. You'll love it!  There will be stick carvers there as well as wood and tool vendors.

Thank you John!
This area has a great tradition of handcrafts, from pottery to blacksmithing.
I love that this is an established organization going way back.
I think I will ask my parents to join me at the show!

I've been working on my space, figuring out what tools I have and what I might need/want,
I could sworn I had draw knife, but I haven't found it yet.
There are plenty of other tools ranging drastically in condition.

I believe it's a food chopper.

Jordan Holland wrote:I believe it's a food chopper.

Agreed.

I don't know if the steel is thick enough or hard enough, but maybe with some file work the other side could be turned into a pole skinner.

Possibly. I would wonder if the handles would stay on, as they are meant to be pushed into it rather than pulled. Even if it would not work as a drawknife, maybe the edge could be sharpened square and used more as a scraper.

William Bronson wrote:  When I was a kid I would find sticks that just felt good in my hand.
Because I was a kid, I usually couldn't keep them.
Now I have a many many sticks drying in my basement while I plan my next move.

I just yesterday saw some walking sticks going for $65 each.
I have some hand tools,lots of power tools,  I'm an inveterate scavenger and a compulsive maker.  

I would like to hear from folks who have carved walking sticks for fun or profit.

Carved this one for an old co-worker as a Christmas gift.
Found the antler and started getting creative. Used a small 1/4" dia double-ended screw and predrilled into the antler and the stick...some glue, and getting the angle right actually worked well. Was pretty solid!
Maybe a little over the top, but it made a fun winter project!

William Bronson wrote:

Michael Cox wrote:William - most "found" walking sticks won't pass commercial standards without additional work. As a starting point, look into what is required to straighten a stick. Steam bending is commonly used, because found sticks are rarely truly straight.

I can't compete against a commercial standard.
It's the arts/crafts market I'm interested in.
Unique looks are better than usefulness.
The more gnarly the stick the better .
I will be striving for durability,  but that's just basic quality control.

I've thought about that, making some to sell and from what I've seen you are right, looks sells lots better than usefulness. I suppose though a lot of them would be fine for walking sticks.

I make or rather have made, over the years maybe 1/2 a dozen hiking not walking sticks. They are made from hickory saplings dug up so as to polish a bit of the root for some bit of decoration at the top. I dig them up, trim appropriately and let dry inside for a couple of years or more. Then placed in a pipe, completely submerged in linseed oil. When bubbles stop coming out, after six to eight months or so they are dried again for several more months. Then they are ready to use although they remain sticky for a good while after that. They can be used for pole-vaulting over small streams, hacking a path through rhododendron and as weapons. They last for a very long time. One thing they are not for is to tend a campfire, if used in that manner they will NOT be replaced.

Figuring in for the above along with the fact a minimum of fifty hickory trees must be planted as payment to the woods and squirrels I figure a fair price for one would be about five thousand dollars, which I doubt many people would pay. Although many people, probably expecting a much lower price have asked.

Mark Reed wrote:Figuring in for the above along with the fact a minimum of fifty hickory trees must be planted as payment to the woods and squirrels I figure a fair price for one would be about five thousand dollars, which I doubt many people would pay. Although many people, probably expecting a much lower price have asked.

That made me chuckle.

What you need to do is make your hikers an exclusive, hard to get status symbol item for the rich and foolish. <cue snobbish sneer>"It's a Mark Reed 2023, limited run, No. 1 of 20 of the series. He only does a series every five years. It has an RFID chip with the serial number that's embedded in the living tissue while it grows to prove authenticity. I'll pass it along to my grandchildren. They'll sell it at Sobeys for a very tidy profit."

William, here is my suggestion for your first carving knife...
https://hummul.com/59-solingen-carving-knife-pre-sharpened/   It comes hair-shaving sharp and since it's made in Solingen, you know it is a quality edge tool. A Kevlar carving glove would be a good investment as well to keep most of your fingers intact;

Food chopper!
I will use it as such.
The handles are weak, I'm going to try wrapping it in ribbons sliced from soda bottles.
It worked on this:

Mark, your process for making walking sticks reminds me of a friend that gave a pair of socks to my wife, when they were working in the same cold office and my wife's feet were freezing.
Becka offered to pay her for them, but our friend declined, explaining that she hand spun, dyed and knitted them, with wool from the fur of her own angora bunnies.
Like your walking sticks, the price in dollars would be extravagant.
Our friend gave them freely and my wife wore them with reverence.

John, I was afraid the knife would be crazy expensive,  but that is quite reasonable!
I will use what I have, but  getting one if these-good tools make for joyful work!

Yes you can. You just need to recognize your uniqueness, then, come to understand your worth.

When I started out, I'd sell one of my custom mirrors for $45.00 and fell happy. The same one wouldn't sell for less than $400.00 today. A lot of that is because I came to recognize my time is worth something, and more so when I bring in the cost of my equipment and the building it's housed in into the equation.

To be fair, I quit competing with anyone decades ago and focuses on unique. Things got better after that.

William Bronson wrote:

Michael Cox wrote:William - most "found" walking sticks won't pass commercial standards without additional work. As a starting point, look into what is required to straighten a stick. Steam bending is commonly used, because found sticks are rarely truly straight.

I can't compete against a commercial standard.
It's the arts/crafts market I'm interested in.
Unique looks are better than usefulness.
The more gnarly the stick the better .
I will be striving for durability,  but that's just basic quality control.

To say I have a lot of walking sticks and canes would be an understatement. They are made from 2x4's and 2x6's, laminated woods, copper, closet dowels scored at yard sales, and aluminum married to wood.

To make my sticks, all I need is a router and 3/4" round-over bit, a scroll saw (a bandsaw can be handy, but isn't required) and a sander. For some, the table saw is a must, to be able to go down the laminate road and to cut down aluminum stock.

Having a lathe helps. It doesn't even have to be a big one, because one can take a mortise and tenon approach to making long sticks out of several pieces.

A couple side notes about my sticks and chasing down uniqueness:

(1) I belong to a turning club. Among its members are a few internationally known characters (they deserve it, their work is remarkable). It would take me decades to get where they are, then they would be those decades ahead of me, so I don't compete with them, I do things differently enough they would have to compete with me too.

One of the ways i made my wood turnings unique was, I learned to copper plate, then how to copper plate wood.  The top of the strange stick is an example (compass on top). I used a dowel screw to attach the copper plated turning to the top of the stick.

(2) I like FLOW. As such, I used rubber stoppers from hardware stores for the feet.

I drill a hole through the stopper, pre-drill the bottom of the stick, then use a deck screw to attach the rubber foot.

The rubber can be sanded to match the shape of the stick.

Kelly, that copper is intense!
As an electrician and a plumber, I came to love copper as a material.
I've been scheming on how to do a copper inlay, and routers came up in my research.
I have two?
Three if you count the rotozip, and I'm not sure if one should.
I don't know how to use one, but that's not  a deterrent for me, more of a bug than a feature really.
I figure one should be mounted in a table, the other kept free.


Some of your peices are pretty eerie, in fact they give me the willies-and I love it!
I feel like I'm looking at alien artifacts, and that brings home the point about being unique.

I am using this goal of crafting as a motive/excuse to get my workshop in order.
I have tools I've never used and I feel my time running short.
I want to leave my children  not so much a body of work, but an example of and the tools for a joyous and sustainable creative life.

I can make all kinds of crazy  things, but I need focus.
The pile of branches that I've collected is as good a thing to focus on as any.
Unlike much of my horde, they have no value beyond kindling, to anyone but me and if I leave them as they are even that potential will be wasted.

That's it!
This week I start on one.
I'm gonna select it, peel it , shape it sand it and finish it.
It will probably be very disappointing, but my first loaf of bread was brick like and I've since baked and sold out of 40 plus loaves at one go.

Thanks for all the encouragement!

Feel free to contact me directly to share ideas. I'd love it.  My woodworking experience dwarfs my buddy's, and my shop pales his. However, he lived a different life than me, so brings value to my life every time he drops by to brainstorm.  

As an example, I know a whole lot of NOTHING about music. I can't read it. I cannot play ANY instrument. My buddy, on the other hand, can do both.  We'd spend hours, often with him talking to me slowly to me, relative to the musical instruments he'd use my shop to build. Because he was able to educate me, a bit, on what he knew, I was able to give him solutions to an instrument build that didn't show up on line (e.g., using his phone to locate the position of a fret or two - it worked).

My experience, well beyond what is described above tells me its unlikely you'd be any different, even if it was just a visit via email or phone.  


SIDE NOTES:

Again, it took me a while to realize I was pretty good a many somethings (this conversation was had on another Permies thread).

My experience is, two sharing ideas are smarter than those keeping secrets to make themselves look good. When I worked for the feds, I kept notes. A company used them to write a manual well beyond my paygrade. I shared those notes freely. It made us ALL look good.

On walking sticks, you are not my competition. Nor am I yours. This world is big and neither of us can handle it all. Said another way, I'll assist you and you are free to use, AS YOU WISH, what I share.

On copper inlay, that can be simple or complex.  Have you, for example, stuck a couple 14 gauge wires in a drill, gripped it on the other end (WITH PLIERS!), and make some cool twisted leads?  If you have, have you taken the twisted leads over to the vice anvil and hammered them flat? Makes for some interesting detail material, no?

That strange, prototype stick I posted has twisted and hammered copper imbedded spiraling down it.  It's held there by epoxy, which would have sluffed off, had I not stolen an idea from fishing pole builders.  That is, I built a SLOW speed lathe so the epoxy wouldn't slough off.

William Bronson wrote:Kelly, that copper is intense!
As an electrician and a plumber, I came to love copper as a material.
I've been scheming on how to do a copper inlay, and routers came up in my research.
I have two?
Three if you count the rotozip, and I'm not sure if one should.
I don't know how to use one, but that's not  a deterrent for me, more of a bug than a feature really.
I figure one should be mounted in a table, the other kept free.


Some of your peices are pretty eerie, in fact they give me the willies-and I love it!
I feel like I'm looking at alien artifacts, and that brings home the point about being unique.

I am using this goal of crafting as a motive/excuse to get my workshop in order.
I have tools I've never used and I feel my time running short.
I want to leave my children  not so much a body of work, but an example of and the tools for a joyous and sustainable creative life.

I can make all kinds of crazy  things, but I need focus.
The pile of branches that I've collected is as good a thing to focus on as any.
Unlike much of my horde, they have no value beyond kindling, to anyone but me and if I leave them as they are even that potential will be wasted.

That's it!
This week I start on one.
I'm gonna select it, peel it , shape it sand it and finish it.
It will probably be very disappointing, but my first loaf of bread was brick like and I've since baked and sold out of 40 plus loaves at one go.

Thanks for all the encouragement!

I love creating. For example, I have about four of the folding tapes. They were about fifty cents, because the first part was missing.  By attaching squares to the end of rods, I could keep them from shifting about and use the router table to plow cut them to install the folding tapes for fellow sawdust fans who would appreciate sticks with them imbedded. . . .

Douglas Alpenstock wrote: That made me chuckle.

What you need to do is make your hikers an exclusive, hard to get status symbol item for the rich and foolish. <cue snobbish sneer>"It's a Mark Reed 2023, limited run, No. 1 of 20 of the series. He only does a series every five years. It has an RFID chip with the serial number that's embedded in the living tissue while it grows to prove authenticity. I'll pass it along to my grandchildren. They'll sell it at Sobeys for a very tidy profit."

I actually have ten or so, still growing, that I have been thinking of harvesting in the next two or three years. I planted the seeds several years ago and the spot is only big enough for four or five trees to mature. All the rest are for making sticks. They are all very straight and I've kept side branches trimmed so there are no breaches in the bark. It will take even longer to absorb the oil because it will only be able to enter through the ends.

I've thought before of trying to inlay silver or gold. Maybe setting in a couple small sapphires or even diamonds but I don't know how to do that and screwing up and ruining one isn't a risk I want to take. Your suggestion of embedding a chip in the living tissue is giving me ideas. I wonder, maybe I could carefully dig down a little below ground, clean it off and drill some holes to embed the gold or gems and let the tree heal around and over the wound. Then when time comes clean or sand it down to expose it. If it didn't work, I could just trim that end a little and retrieve the metals and gems. The staff would be fine, just missing the customary root end decoration/war club.

I wonder what I'm up to now, price wise. Grow the trees myself from seed, cost of gold and diamonds, total time for completion approximately twenty years with delivery in approximately five years and most likely the last ones ever made.  

I have a question - has anyone of the woodcarvers or people wanting to make walking sticks used the stems of the walking stick cabbage plant, Brassica oleracea longata?

What I have read of it, in the old days, I believe in Wales, they grew the plant for human food, cattle food, and then harvested the long and tall stems to be dried for probably 2 years, then used them as roofing material and as walking sticks or canes.

I plan on growing it this year, the young, lower leaves are for human food, cooked like any other cabbage. The mature leaves were usually used for cattle food. Me, I probably will grow it just to see it. The plant can grow up to 10 feet, or more.

One of the nephews who lives with me was outraged at the price of eggs in our area, $5.00 a dozen. He as been talking with neighbors who have chickens. Our town allows us have 4 chickens, no rooster. It looks like we will have chickens and the walking stick cabbage leaves and vegetable peeling will help feed the chickens.

Life is such an adventure, from gardening, canning, making my own undies to raising chickens. Yippeeee!