Walking Sticks in the Forest of Unknowing

I read a book about Lappland a while ago. The author stopped at this little village at the end of a trail that tourists use. He got invited in to one of the earthern hutts by an old woman. As he sat with her and she tended the fire he noticed she was feeding it with intracately carved sticks. Turned out to be hiking sticks from the tourists. He was having this cosmic experience with the old woman at the end of the trail who feeds the beloved sticks to the fire.
 
A great story again.


Further down the trail, there's an old woman feeding tourists to the fire.




munk
 
"tourists to the fire" :D

'Tis all a matter of perspective. In WWII, one of my uncles fed a grand piano into the fire to keep his squad from freezing. (To go outside was to be sniper bait.) He was the family musician and grieved over that event for years.
 
I can just see the piano, Thomas.


Kismet! I've been thinking- finding the sticks was special. I don't look upon the events as a condemnation of munk ability. I know there will be more special things. They are all around us.

I do forget that sometimes.
I was so happy to find those sticks.


munk
 
munk said:
Disaster-

All my chokecherry staffs are cracking. That's why they don't make stuff out of chokecherry, I guess.

I wish I knew how to do this better. Maybe if I'd left the skin on and waited several months they might have made it- any ideas? There was a fair amount of work in these already. Darn.



munk
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The best time to harvest walking sticks is in the late fall after the leaves have dropped.Leave the bark on and seal the ends with wax or paint.Store them in a dry shaded area outside to let them dry as slow as possible(over one year). This should minimize cracks and checks.If you want to straighten the stick after it has dried,steam the section to be straightened and bend it straight over your knee. I usually leave the bark on and polish it with fine steel wool and seal it with tung oil or double boiled linseed oil and reapply as needed.
 
mrd74;
thank you.
Winter is the time I heard, but end of growing season makes sense.
If they are cut at some other time, like right now for instance, is the veg oil adequate?



munk
 
I don't understand your reference to "veg oil". Are you meaning moisture(sap) in the wood?
 
Ninja wood selection - whatever's available can be made better by:
1. Selecting pieces with longitudinal grain
2. Sand and oil repeatedly with boiled linseed.

The longitudinal grain will give it flex and resistance to breaking. The oil will give it an increase in weight, density and resistance to cracking, cutting, crushing.
Even a cheap pine dowel can be made useful if the grain is straight along the long axis and if it has been sanded and soaked in enough oil.
Stll, the better the wood, the better the wood.
Catch as catch can, my grandmother used to say.
 
No Mrd74; vegitable oil- like you might fry a tortilla in. (In case of hardship, walking stick can be sliced into small sections and fried over a medium heat)

Seriously, I'm worried if I use too much oil I won't be able to put a coat of trueoil or something on it later.

You live in BC. That's a moist place. A stick left in the garage over winter here might crack merely from extreme cold and drying- the moisture is sucked out of the air in below zero weather.

If you put the stick in the house over winter, now it cracks from house heat and low moisture conditions brought about by the same cold.


munk
 
TLM said:
Can you tell us which book, kind of curious as I live (relatively) close to the area.

TLM
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I'm sorry, I forgot the name, and I think I've disposed of the book. However, it could be in my (very messy) study. If it turns up I'll let you know the title by e-mail and/or posting in this thread.
 
Just a thought, but didn't/don't the Irish put their blackthorns and such in the chemney of their fireplaces to cure?
"To keep the wood from splitting during the drying process the Irishman would often bury the cudgel in a dung heap or smear with butter then place in the chimney to cure".----from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4933/batatext.html

Anyone ever tried that? Like munk, most of the sticks i make crack on me. it stays pretty humid hear in the Ohio valley most of the year. i know it has more to do with my technique than it does with the climate and wood;)

Jake
 
Steely_Gunz said:
"To keep the wood from splitting during the drying process the Irishman would often bury the cudgel in a dung heap...
Click to expand...

Just happens that I have a couple of fresh 2 pound bags for sale. 2.95 plus shipping.
:D

I read in a LeeValley catalog that some cracking can be prevented by sealing the end grain of a log. Can that be applied to sticks also?
 
I'm going to try to make an ash bata. I planned on sealing the cut end and using a rootball for the other end. With the butter and smoke method, do you guys think it has to be butter, or could you use vasoline or something? Also, could placing the buttered stick in a bin of ashes be substituted for smoking it?
 
Munk

I would recommend tung or linseed oil over Trueoil in this case




The cracking is caused by the stick drying out to fast,sealing the ends and leaving the bark on slows down the drying process resulting in less or no cracks(splits)



The stick will dry even faster indoors(heat) resulting in more splitting and warping as well.
 
MRD;

I don't really care what I use. I mentioned true oil because I wanted to know if a sealer/preservative is going to have a problem sticking to veg-oiled wood later. I'm going to go plastic, actually.


The Montana climate is severe. I'll have to do things differently than one would in BC. Probably just more care for a shorter period of time.

OK- Yvsa just told me I'll have to use boiled lineseed oil if I have treated the sticks with veg oil earlier. That's fine. Take longer is all.


munk
 
we used to soak our wooden ramrods in kerosene for a few months, kept 'em nice & flexible, then they invented them .58 cal springfields & it had a metal ramrod. miss the old kaintucky long riffle tho, .36 cal was more than enuff for yankee huntin & didn't need near as much lead.
 
kronckew said:
we used to soak our wooden ramrods in kerosene for a few months, kept 'em nice & flexible.
Click to expand...
What did they use before kerosene, whale oil? ;)
Most likely since it was widely available for lamps and such.:D

The ndns often needed a bow at inopportune times for cutting wood.
The trick was too debark the wood and keep it rubbed down with animal grease until it dried. We also fire seasoned and hardened wood but that's real tricky and if you don't know what you're doing the extreme heat of the fire will create the same kind of cracks as if you didn't keep it oiled or greased up.
It's easier to do once a great deal of the moisture has left the wood.
I've made Ash Pipe stems from freshly cut branches and saplings and have had small heat induced cracks form from drying and seasoning them with a propane torch.
In this case they didn't hurt anything as the wood would never be flexed and weren't deep enough too keep the stem from sucking air when smoking the Pipe.

I fire hardened an Ash bow I made when I was about 14 that was cut at the wrong time of the year. I roughed out the bow that had somewhat of a natural recurve and then reinforced the recurve by forcing it around some big heavy nails in the side of my Uncle Bud's abandoned outhouse made from native lumber.
I was lucky it didn't crack under the hot Oklahoma sun and still don't know why it didn't unless it was because I had reduced its size substanially and then put it under pressure.
It was dry too the touch when I hung it up.
After hanging for a couple of weeks I took it down and started finishing it but it wasn't quite ready.
I oiled it down and rehung it for another couple of weeks.
When I next took it down from around the nails it was a little loose hanging in them and held its shape.
I started finishing it again, carved the nocks in the ends for the string and started tillering it.
When I got it about down too where I wanted it I built a fire and started fire hardening it. You could see the oil and the sap that was left boiling out of it. I kept oiling it and putting it over the fire until I had it like I wanted it.
The fire hardened Ash had a beautiful finish on it. I don't know how accurate it was but with a set of bathroom scales and a buddy and after several slip ups we drew it too full draw and it registered 65 pounds.:D
I had that bow for a long time. We didn't have room in the trailerhouse we lived in for it so I kept it undernath the trailer.
Some bastard stole it.:grumpy:
 
Some bastard stole it.<>>>>>>>> Yvsa

That's the end of many a story.

Unless it's about women, then the ending is, "she married the bastard."

First knife I ever owned, given to me by my Dad, a nice Case pocket folder, stolen. As a matter a fact, the next two replacement pocket knives, both Case, also stolen. Was I in a bad neighborhood? Leave them in the car? Parking lot?

Not at all. A respectable dorm at a well respected College.
Apparently, the rich brats who made it to the Institution couldn't afford a knife on their own and needed one of mine.

I did not buy another pocket knife for many years after that.

munk
 
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