Update on Walking Stick & Tip of the Day

Update
I have completed wood burning the wild rose design on the walking stick.  I had considered adding a second spiral of the design, but I see now that there would not be enough room to do this without making the design look crowded.  Chaotic profusion works well for nature, but not very well for art.  I am considering wood burning a bit of enigmatic poetry on instead, but I may ultimately decide to just leave it as it is.  I think I will go ahead with painting the design I have on it already and see how it looks before changing my plan for the walking stick.

I am often asked where I get my wood for walking sticks.  I live near a farm.  Every few years the farmer will cut down the saplings that grow at the edge of the field and shade his crops.  With his permission, I forage through the downed saplings and select the ones that will make a nice fairly straight walking stick.  So yes, some trees were harmed to make walking sticks.  However, they were already cut down by someone else and all I did was pick up wood that was left to rot.  I offer the downed saplings an opportunity to live on as a work of art.  

It occurs to me that some people might be inspired to decorate their own walking stick after viewing my designs.  My tip of the day deals with the work that needs to be done with the wood before you start putting a design on there. Hopefully, it will keep some people from making an aggravating and discouraging mistake.


 Tip of the Day:  Wood Selection and Drying Time

Begin by choosing a hard wood such as oak, ash, locust, or maple.  Softer woods can be used, but they may break if you were putting too much weight onto the stick.  I work with locust wood.  It is an extremely hard wood and makes a strong walking stick.  (I make my walking sticks to be used as actual walking sticks used for hiking rather than just decorative pieces of wood.)  I use saplings that have grown up straight rather than branches to make a walking stick.  Branches have more curves and often aren't straight enough.  However, if you find a branch that would make a nice stick, go for it.

You can't just pick up a stick, start stripping it and add a design.  Your stick will crack!  The stick needs time to dry before you begin working on the design.  The drying process can take years.  The stick needs to be off the ground in a dry place.  I usually keep my sticks in a shed. 

Some people say strip the saplings right away because it is easier to remove the bark while the tree retains some moisture.  If you choose to strip the sapling at that point, you will need to wrap the sapling in plastic.  After that, you will have to open the plastic for about an hour each day to allow it to dry out a bit at a time.  This is way too much work for me. I have had saplings crack even if I have waited a year to strip them.  Note: If a stick does crack, you can use wood filler to fill in the crack.

My method lets a sapling dry on its own.  The saplings I pick up are about ten to twelve feet tall.  When I bring them home, I cut them down to about seven foot lengths, cutting some material off each end so that each end has a fresh cut to allow moisture to escape.  Then I keep them in the shed for at least two or three years.  As the saplings dry out, they will splinter and split for several inches from the cut ends, but the rest of the stick generally remains intact.  When they are dry and I'm ready to make a stick, I cut off the splintered areas.  I will have a usable piece of wood somewhere between five and six feet long.  It is more work to get the bark off at this point but I find that I have more usable sticks this way.