Walking Stick Z Part 7 - Celtic Knotwork on Stick

Celtic Knot Work spirals around the stick.

This week I have been outside wood burning the Celtic Knot Work onto the stick.  I'm glad to finally be getting to this stage of the project.  I enjoy working outside.  It is hot and humid and the insects are making an almost hypnotic cacophony.    It rained last night and is supposed to rain again this morning so I am not out there today.  Maybe it will be better weather tomorrow.  

With all the rain we have been having, mosquitoes are a bit of a problem.  There is usually a sweet spot in the day where it is warm and sunny enough that the mosquitoes have gone in until nightfall but it is still cool enough that the flies have yet not come out.  That is the best time to be outside.  After about 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. the day turns so hot and humid that it feels brain-boiling hot and the flies are out to get anything that moves. 

Next transfer is on and ready for burning.

I wanted to blog about the amount of time it takes to create one of the walking sticks.  There are a number of steps involved.  They are not as quick a craft as one would think.  The time will vary on just what you plan to do to it.  Each step and its complexity (or lack thereof) affects the amount of time it takes to complete the project.  The steps involved may include stripping the bark, sanding, wood burning, carving, painting, staining, and
varnishing.

Some people choose not to strip the bark off the stick.  It is very natural looking and just as usable as a walking stick.  Some people may choose to only strip a portion of the stick and wood burn, paint, or carve in a few strategic places.  I completely stripped this walking stick because I plan to have a design that spirals around the entire stick.  I like to have a spiral pattern because it seem very organic, even when it is a complex pattern.  The spiral pattern reminds me of the vines that I see wrapping around trees.  Of course, all this adds to the time.

I stripped the stick over a couple of days.  Overall it took about four hours.  Once the walking stick was stripped, it needed to be sanded.  I hand sanded it twice, once with 100 grit, then once with 220 grit.  After that I went over it once more with a hand sander to get it as smooth as I could.  I guess that took about an hour.  At this point I am five hours in and now have a stick that is ready for decorating.  I drew my own Celtic Knot Work.  Learning how to do that took all day.  I expect that time will decrease if I work with it enough to understand it better. 

Once a pattern has been developed it has to be transferred onto the stick.  If you go to my blog (folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com) and scroll through the previous posts for Walking Stick Z, you will find links to sites for drawing knot work, book references to help you learn to make Celtic Knot Work and instruction on how to transfer the pattern.  Since I blogged extensively on these subjects earlier, I am not going to go into it again here.  It took twenty minutes to prepare the ten inch strand of knot work for transfer.  Once the transfer was ready, you have to tape it to the stick which just takes a minute or two.  After that it took another twenty-four minutes transfer the pattern onto the walking stick.  So you can figure that it is going to take about forty-five minutes for each ten inch section you have to transfer. 

The wood burning takes even longer than transferring the pattern.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First off,  you really have to do this slowly and carefully.  If you move too quickly you are likely to go off your line.  You can sand out an error, but it is difficult.  (See the last blog post that shows what can happen if you hold the wood burning tool at the wrong angle.)  Also, you could sand off your pattern and have to fix your transfer as well.  Because the walking stick is round, it is easy for the tool to slip. 

Another reason for moving slowly is that the pattern spirals around the stick.  The stick must be turned while following the line in order to have a smooth curve.  As the stick is constantly turning, it is not held down by clamps.  Since it is not held down by clamps, the wood burning tool is apt to slip.  Working at a steady pace, I was able to wood burn five inches of the pattern in one hour.  At that point, I felt I needed to stop for the day.  My hand was getting cramped and I was tired of sitting in one position for so long.  The next time, I burned the second half of the ten inch strand and it also took an hour.  So for each ten inches of the knot work design, figure it will take two hours of wood burning time.

I did not add the amount of time that it took me to develop the pattern into this time estimate.  If you want to save time, there are plenty of pattern transfer books and online resources that will help with that section of the project.  The following estimate is only the work time for this segment.  When you add up prepping the pattern for transfer, transferring the pattern, and wood burning it, the total comes to two hours and forty-five minutes for each ten inch segment.  When I add in set-up time and clean-up time it might as well be rounded up to three hours.  Given the height of the stick (5'7") and the fact that a small portion of the ten inches is lost due to the spiral around the stick, the time estimate for this portion of the project is approximately twenty-four hours (3 hours times 8 segments).  If the time for stripping and and sanding is added in, the total time so far comes to twenty-nine hours to complete the project up to finishing the wood burning.  
 
This project also calls for it to be painted, stained, and varnished.   I will be blogging on that information as soon as I reach those portions of the project.  I will be blogging next on Sunday.