Making A Walking Stick ~ by WoodlandsTV

Transcript

Huw Edwards: OK, well I'm making a traditional hazel thumb-stick. That's what it looks like straight out of the wood. I've left it long on the end so that it dries quite well. So I'll be able to cut it off about there and there and work on it. Nothing grows straight in nature and this has to be straightened. I do that using - it's a trade secret -- a hot-air gun that you would use for stripping paint. You bend it over your knee and you remember not to do it while wearing shorts as I did the other day, because hot-air guns make this very hot and bare skin doesn't react well to it.

So that's the rough stuff. And then you end up with a rather nice straight version. And this one, this is hazel; it has to be hazel, because this is one of the things we make in the coppice group. The thumb area is clear out. I'm doing that with this one - this is not hazel, this is ash. I'm just roughing that out to tidy it up.

I use a traditional shave horse for doing it, because that holds it and I've got my hands free so I can do what I like with tools I use. Very simple, just a nice little knife and a little draw knife as well.

It's very, very fine sandpaper, so it produces a nice, fine finish, because the last thing you want, with something like this is something that's going to irritate the thumb. So it needs to be reasonably smooth.

You've also got other options. You could drill a hole, put a leather thong through it which will allow you to keep hold of it. And the beauty of these things of course is that they are sustainable and the modern aluminum poles are all very fine if you're on a major trek perhaps, but for general purposes, general use, one of these things, it's sustainable and they don't snap. It comes with a guarantee, unless it's abused of course.

You get a really nice fancy piece that's been attacked by honeysuckle and you want to put something on the top of it, that's ash to contrast with the hazel. That's jointed. Because this is quite thin, I've used not quite this thickness. There's eight millimeters, but there's a six millimeter bar in there that goes in about so far and it allows me to put a little black spacer in. And were I do this one again, I might still do it. In fact, I might finish it off with a couple of decorative black caps, they look quite nice as well.

Traditionally, with the thicker material, you get just as powerful a joint by simply taking the end, trimming it down, cutting it round, and gradually whittling down to get a dowel. There you have stick-making in a nutshell.

As far as finish is concerned, a lot of people will take one of these things and they'll varnish them. And they look gorgeous, but for a practical stick, it's not really the best finish in my experience because when you use them, you're banging about and that tends to crack the varnish. Water gets in under the varnish and lifts it and of course it lifts the bark as well.

This is just teak oil, which you can get back the finish very, very nicely. A little bit of very fine wire wool and it comes up, just polishes up. This is the very finest grade wire wool. It just burnishes it a little. Wipe the excess off, and it gives it that little bit of a lift. Compare it with that one, which hasn't actually had a touch-up. Takes no time at all to just put a little bit of a burnish on it.