Award Sticks

I have made a number of sticks that get used as awards at trials.  Many of them like this one have brass (or nickle silver) collars that are engraved with what the award is for.  This one is for the Cumulative points champion for the three fall trials here in the Willamette Valley.  It gets handed out tomorrow after the final trial.  This one is black walnut with a brass collar and a hazel shank that has a lot of color in it from insect or fungus activity.

Carving part2

And here is the other one.  This one is the wolf head.  For both of these sticks there is still a lot of work to do yet, there is all the detail carving still to do which generally takes longer than the basic carving and then lots and lots of sanding, let alone the final assembly and finishing.

carving part1

Raven did the initial carving on the Border Collie head market stick today.  I put a bit of water on the wood so you could see the grain better.  You cant see it in this picture but i also put the head on a diet, i made it thinner. In the last picture you saw it was 29mm thick now its 25mm thick, this is so that i can do a more graceful taper on the collar to join the shank which is 19mm thick.

Sanding a shank

For most sticks I leave the bark on but occasionally I strip the bark off, this us usually with Holly but when i found a nice hazel shank with the bark all cracked i figured i would give stripping it a try.  It was no harder to strip than the holly and looks good so I am using it for the dogs head market stick I am working on.  The problem with stripped shanks is they are a lot more work, besides the actual work of stripping the bark there is a lot of sanding involved to remove traces of the inner most layer of the bark and to get a nice smooth finish.

Fortunately its football season! So i can sit and watch a game and sand away at the shank.  In this case as the stick is going to be relatively short for a shepherds stick (42 inches) and with a head and collar size of 7.5 inches the shank is quite short.  Here it is all sanded and ready for the head (and finish of course but that will come after it is joined to the head.

Roughing in

Well it was cold and damk here today so I got some serious stick work done.  I finished roughing in the wolf head stick and I roughed in the market stick with the Border Collie head on, what i guess we can call the "chin".  Lots of work with the dremel and the big belt sander to get this far.  I get to a point where i just have to stop because the sawdust is just overwhelming even when i have the shop vac hooked up to the big sander. I guess its about time I put up some pictures of my little shop shed so its clearer what i am talking about. Perhaps that will be tomorrows post as I rarely work on sticks on Sundays as I am usually to busy with herding lessons.

 The next step for these two sticks  is carving of the wolf and dog head respectively.  That's probably going to take a few days then it will be time to get down to some serious sanding.

Commissioned Sticks

When Raven works on a portrait she often posts pictures of the work in progress on her facebook page so the client and others can follow along on the progress.  I thought doing the same thing on my blog for commissioned sticks would be a good way for clients to see how their stick is going and for me to talk about the process.  So here goes.

I have two sticks I am working on for clients right now.  The first one is a variation on what I call the "gentlemans cane" deign with a wolf head carved at the nose end.  I really like this design because of its versatility, it works as a support cane, as a walking stick or as a crook depending on how long it is and how you hold it.  I showed the original cut out on Sunday the13th and the initial carving on the wolf head on Tuesday the 15th.  Since then i have shaped the main part of the head and added the collar.

It was intended to have a single white horn collar but when i noticed the nice color striped going down toward where the shank will be i had an idea.  I cut off part of the shank end, and put a collar between it and the main part of the head, then another one after the extra wood piece.  You may not see the color stripes well in this picture but i know they will show up well when I add the finish.  I think it will be a really cool look.

This also gives me a chance to talk about my joints.  I usually join the heads to the collars and shanks using a piece of steel all-thread, this adds strength to the joint.  I sand the surfaces that will touch and then carve out a small bowl around the hole the all thread goes through, this bowl acts as a pocket for the epoxy i use to glue the bits together and makes sure i have a good solid bond.  I also coat all the surfaces with epoxy and fill the hole in the head and shank with epoxy.

So now this head will go back to Raven for more carving of the wolf.  The cut out of the other commission I am working on was posted on Nov 16 and i will be showing it as it goes along as well.  It will be a burl maple head, a black horn collar and a stripped hazel shank. Expect to see pictures of its progress soon.

Finishing

Yes yes I know i'm not writing about things in the order i do them, but then i'm not writing this blog to be a class on stick dressing.  I am working on a section for my web site at www.wolston.com/crooks that will be a step by step guide through my stick making process.  The blog is about what i'm doing on a day to day basis and this time its finishing.
Finishing typically takes about a week.  After i think i am done with sanding I add a coat of finish, then i examine it to see if there are marks that indicate I missed something in sanding.  I clean up the marks and finish again.  Once i cant find any more marks to clean up I add another 3-5 coats of finish, give it a buff with very fine steel wool then one last coat of finish.
The finish i use most is a gun stock finish called Tru Oil but i also use Tung Oil sometimes.  I usually save up sticks once they are done sanding and finish several at once.  This is because once a bottle of oil is opened and exposed to the air it starts to slowly thicken and eventually set hard so if you don't want to waste a lot then you need to try and use it up in a reasonable amount of time.  You can get a spray on version of Tru oil but there is something about hand rubbing on the finish that I find really gives me a connection to the piece that i don't get when i use the spray on finish.
Anyway i have just put the last coat of finish on three sticks so here they are.  The first one is a shepherds crook in quilted maple with a black horn collar, the second is a derby walking stick in black walnut with a white horn collar the the last one is a safety grip derby stick in quilted maple.

Eddie

We lost Edgar last night.  Edgar, or Eddie as we called him, was one of our livestock guardian dogs.   He was a Maramma and before we got him we lost 10 sheep in 3 weeks to coyotes.  After he arrived we never lost another one.  A few years ago he went blind and could not be out in the fields anymore so we moved him to the front yard, put him on a long chain so he could get around and gave him some "lawn lambs" to look after.  He was about 15 when he passed last night, a long life for such a big dog.  Edgar and my dog Moss, who we lost to liver cancer earlier this year ( he was also getting old ),  literally kept the farm going during our early years here, they are greatly missed but they set us on a good path and their understudies are now running the farm in their stead.

I didn't wok on sticks today, but i promised a picture of my bending jig so here it is.  Basically its 4 pieces of 1 inch pvc pipe in a 2 by 8 fastened to a post.  After heating the stick i slide it between them horizontally, put the part to be bent on one of the lower PVC pieces and push down on the bit sticking out. Maybe ill put up a video soon of the process.

While im posting pics here is one of another commissioned stick i am starting on. Its a maple burl head market stick with a dog's head to be carved on the outer curve.  Guess i also need to do a post on terminology, either that or you could read that section of my web site at www.wolston.com/crooks

Its not all about the head

When I post pictures of sticks they are primarily focused on the head, but the shanks are equally important if not nearly as much fun to work on.  Shanks need to cure for a year before you use them or the shrinkage that occurs will mess up your joints.  I cut a big batch of sticks last fall so its time to start working on them. That means straightening them. It is not the most fun part of stick making but it is important and I find it goes best if i work on straightening a half dozen or so at the same time.  This way as i finish working on a bend it one i can set it aside to cool and work on a bend in another.

Traditionally sticks were heated for straightening with steam but as long as you are careful and the stick is not to dry you can use a hot air gun to heat them up for bending much faster. Tomorrow i have to remember to put up a picture of my bending jig.

Meanwhile Raven started carving the wolf head on the current project stick.  Normally the carving is done after the basic handle is done but as I was working on other things Raven started the carving today. The reason to leave the carving till the end is so you dont bash it while working on the rest of it so i will have to be careful when I work on the body of the handle.

Collaboration

I think everything goes better with collaboration.  My primary occupation is as a sheep farmer and herding dog trainer.  When out working the sheep or when competing at a trial I have the most success when the dog and I work together, when we collaborate and help each other.


I think of my stick making in the same way, while for many of the sticks i may do all the actual work on them I never make a stick where i don't show it to someone as it is in progress.  I am also keenly aware that much of what i do is not something i thought up all on my own, a number of the design ideas I use and a lot of the techniques I use come from a good friend and mentor George MacDonald.

On a more direct level a number of my most intricately carved sticks are a collabaration between my wife and I.  Raven is a professional artist specializing in pet portraits but she has also been a wood carver in the past and her carving work can be seen in a number of my sticks including the one shown here.  I expect raven will be doing a lot of the detail carving on the current project stick below as well.

Next project

Here is my next project.  Its in a style i call a gentlemans walking stick,  its a nice shape because it can be used for a walking stick, as a support cane or as a shepherds crook.  This one is going to be different though because there is going to be a wolf head added to the end of it.  The wood is a very nice piece of black walnut with a lot of color changes in it. Typically when I am doing a commissioned stick with a wood head I ask for 2-3 months to complete the project but this one needs to be done in a month so will have to put a majority of my time on this stick instead of working on several at once like i usually do.  Below is a picture of  this style stick without the carving, in this case it is of course viewed from the opposite side and the wood on this one is quilted maple.  

Most Recent Stick

I guess as good a place to start is with a picture of the stick i most recently finished.  This one is a Shepherds crook in a style of my own that i really like. I take a small horn that would not normally be used for stick making but that has a nice natural curve and fits in a hand well.  I take off the outer layer of dirty horn then sand it down.  I fill the horn to add weight then i use a piece of wood to taper from the horn to a reasonable thickness for adding a shank.  In this case the tapered piece is actually 2 pieces, maple burl and black walnut.  the shank is a very nice piece of hazel that has a lot of sort of gold flecks in it.  When i put sticks on my web site for sale i usually put up 2 pictures, one that shows the detail of the head and one that shows the full length of the stick. So I will do the same here.

The adventure begins

I have been making shepherds crook, walking sticks and canes for 5 years now and it has become something of a passion of mine over the past couple of years. More and more I find that people are interested in what i am currently working on or how i made this stick or that stick. So i figured what the heck, why not start a blog about  my stickmaking.  If nothing else it should remind me that i need to get out to my shop and get some work done!

So here I am Sunday November 13th 2011, it looks like I have 2 new sticks on order and i have several that are nearly finished, its getting into winter so its not so much fun to be outside, perfect time to get into some serious stick time in the shop.

I expect to be putting up pictures of stick as they are finished and also work in progress pictures, hopefully people will find it interesting, and maybe even inspired.