New stick: It's made from a Lilac branch from my back of the house small garden because I had to cut down some branches that where growing into a staircase and window.

Carved in low relief, Lilac is fairly hard like White Oak or Ash but it's not generally available as lumber because the Lilac bush grows with very crooked trunk and branches that would not be easily cut into planks of a usable size.

EDITED, harder than White oak or Ash:

Quote:

Janka Hardness: 2,350 lbf (10,440 N)*

The wood can also badly split as it dries, but the way around that is to leave the bark on the cut off branches and put some vaseline at the cut ends to that the ends don't dry faster than the rest of the wood. I let this piece dry out for 1 1/2 years before working with it and it didn't crack at all. Another small branch section I deliberately didn't cover the exposed ends just to see what would happen and that piece developed a crack at least 1/4" wide ...... WTF !

Maybe more information than you probably need to know about Lilac ...... LOL. Oh, as a side benefit when carving Lilac one gets the smell of Lilac blossoms although the nice smell goes away fairly soon.

It's difficult to show the whole stick in the wide shots and show the details of the sculpting at the same time.

Angled shots help to show details but the perspective does distort the dimensions making what is close to the camera look a lot bigger and what is away from the camera looks sort of too small.

Keep in mind the proportion of the wide shots taken at 90° where there is the least distortion and sort of average out from all the other pics.

The sculpture is different all around the stick so I tried to show you the stick on every side.

I left the stick very thick in cross section and the pic showing it with a previous stick helps in getting an idea as to scale + the pics of my holding it. ;) :D

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And as usual some more pics from different angles and with the stick in hand.

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Hi Jean

a very attractive wood. Is the pale pink typical or is it the lighting?

regards
mike

So a two for one post.


Here are the two recent sticks, the first being Lilac with the nails as decorative mostly but adding some texture and gripping to the handle.

The second is the one using the maple branch, leaving on the bark this time and with the Cocobolo head.

All pretty self-explaining in the pics.

I still like to make more complex sticks but I also really like making a simple stick when I find an interesting branch.

The Lilac is again from some branch trimming from my back yard, the maple ( I think it's maple ? ) came from found branches on the sidewalk when the city did some tree cutting or branches broke off after a storm.

Because 90% of our trees on Montreal streets or in our parks are either maple or ash the branch is probably maple or ash: I don't remember for sure but when I found the branch it might still have had leaves attached to it and it was probably maple.

Unfortunately the city has had to cut down many ash trees because of the Emerald Ash Borer so I occasionally come across some branches before the city comes back to clean up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_ash_borer

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The two sticks next to each other. The pale one is lilac.

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The other side of the sticks, the lilac branch looks very different depending on side shown.

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Close up of cocobolo head. I cut a hole in the cocobolo to insert the branch into.

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Lilac seen from another angle.

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The usual steel butt.

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Shown in hand for scale.

And a few more pics of the sticks. The sticks finished with the usual boiled linseed oil.

I used a dremel to cut an " X " into the tip of the steel butt and widened the cuts using a triangular file.

The cocobolo stick is much lighter than most of my sticks and is fast and lively in the hand, and the cocobolo is now glass smooth.

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File cut X in the tip to improve traction without using a rubber cane tip

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Cocobolo stick in hand.

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Another angle shoing the nice colours and grain.

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Diameter of the stick near the head is about 1 1/8"

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Top view of cocobolo head.

I always enjoy seeing your walking stick designs, Jean! Especially after looking at what's for sale online. Your designs are so much more elegant, purposeful-looking, and organic. Thanks for sharing!

Interesting and useful information. Something for potential hobbyists to consider.
Keep up the good work on those artistic and functional sticks!

Oh, I made a new walking stick for Marc, the boyfriend of my cousin.

Below a few pics of the new stick using African Blackwood for the handle and Macassar Ebony for the cane shaft, I added a stainless steel reinforcement at the tip of the cane handle to protect it from damage if one drops it on the tip.

( This stick is a lot lighter than the ones I usually make for myself, and it's a little shorter to custom fit Marc height ).

I bought some cheap stainless steel spoons that I can " repurpose " and grind to shape for tips or tops of walking sticks: An easy source of rounded shaped steel.

If I want larger pieces there are stainless steel bowls that could be cut to any needed shape.


The top of the handle has been carved with repeating " M " grooves for Marc's name: This is just a subtle use of his first's name initial in addition to giving a better grip on the very polished handle that feels like glass.

By the way " African Blackwood " is one off the hardest wood in the World and is very hard and slow to carve with a knife, so as usual, I mostly use rasps and files to carve in grooves in the harder woods.

http://www.wood-database.com/african-blackwood/

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/top-ten-hardest-woods/

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I missed that last one! Really nice work, Jean.

I've recently gone on a spoon buying spree. Any time I see them, or other kitchen goodies, for sale in garage sales or flea markets, I buy 'em up. ;) I'm going to attempt---I say 'attempt'---to make a pair of articulated gauntlets based off of a pair of welding gloves...and spoons. :lol: We'll see how it turns out. :lol: ....McM

Dear Jean, being a long-time admirer of your walking sticks projects, I´m posting some of my own. Some are older ones, two of them were finished only recently. They´re much simpler than your designs though.


Left to right: Downy willow, cherry treen, mulberry, black thorn, crab tree, dogrose

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King of the Hill for Mr Underhill (mulberry)

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Gramr (crab tree)

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Nasty one (black thorn)

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Very nice work! I’ve seen a few DIY cane projects here and there, they always impress me. It’s one of those bucket list projects I have when I get the time.

[quote="Radovan Geist"]Dear Jean, being a long-time admirer of your walking sticks projects, I´m posting some of my own. Some are older ones, two of them were finished only recently. They´re much simpler than your designs though.

Thanks for the compliments about my walking stick, it's appreciated.


Nice sticks, I also like using natural sticks and sometimes doing minimal work on them save shaping the head depending on what the head looks like.

With a head that can be used with little to no work that happens to have a nice organic shape I would leave it as found.

In one case of a recent stick, that I haven't yet posted to this thread, the stick was from a Lilac tree branch that someone had cut down with a smaller diameter branch coming out of a larger branch. I cut the excess of the bigger diameter branch and then turned that part into a ball rounded shape at the cuts leaving much to the natural shape of the branch.

The smaller branch that was growing out of the large branch became the stick part of the walking stick making it look somewhat like a Shillelagh.

The only thing I might suggest for your sticks would be adding a copper tip to the sticks using plumbing copper end caps.
Might also use boiled linseed oil to preserve the wood and show of the wood grain.

From the pics it's hard to tell if you used linseed oil or some other finish ?


Nice sculpting on the Mulberry stick reminds me of some Viking Chess pieces.
The Blackthorn stick has a very interesting natural head and the type of natural head best left alone as nature made it.
The crab Tree has a nice bend at the top.


I have a backlog of sticks that I haven't taken pics of maybe another half a dozen sticks or so ….. The more I get behind taking pics the worse it gets because the set-up for doing the photography of all of the sticks, transferring the pics to my old iMac and then transferring the pics to my new MacBook Air …… Lazy about it I guess as the time it would take might be a whole day ….. Transferring the pics and sorting them out into created new folders, renaming the files etc ……

Maybe I could do a group pic like you did and show a lot of the stick creating fewer pics ..... ;)

Dear Jean, thank you for your advice on using oil to preserve wood. For my projects I´m using shoemaker´s wax (most of those walking sticks shown here) or a vegetable oil mixed with ash powder, when I want to darken the wood (used on the willow one). I have not applied anything on the dogrose wood yet - I´m waiting till it dries out completely and gets darker. In my experience, after one year it gets really nice brown colour - we shall see:)

I will probably add metal tips on some of these sticks, it would be a shame if the wood splits.

Please, do post your more recent projects.