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Walking Cane

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Walking Cane

Postby woodhutt » 24 Jul 2020, 20:10

Here's a walking cane I made recently for a mate with dodgy knees.
This is a first for me in every respect so please be gentle :text-imnewhere:
The shaft is Black Cherry.

First challenge was to get a cylindrical shaft when I don't have a lathe so I made a jig out of scrap ply. I tapped a 6mm thrd rod about 50mm into each end of the stock taking care to get the rod at what will be the handle end in line with the long axis of the shaft as that will be a permanent fixing to the handle. The handle end rod was fixed in place using 2K epoxy. The rod at the tip end will eventually be removed and the hole plugged.
IMG_2034.JPG
(301.73 KiB)


I wanted a gentle taper on the shaft so I chalk marked it at 1/3 intervals along its length. Then, using a finely set low angle block plane and starting at the mark nearest the tip, I developed an octagonal shape taking very light shavings.
I then moved back to the next mark and repeated the process making sure to travel all the way to the tip with the plane. Then back to the top of the shaft and repeated the process, again travelling all the way to the tip. This meant that for every stroke at the top of the shaft, the centre portion got two strokes and the lower portion three (you get the picture I'm sure :) ) so a taper was developed. I then moved to a spokeshave to refine the shape and finally sanded through the grits.

The handle is in European Oak. I bandsawed the blank to shape, drilled a hole where it will attach to the shaft and tapped in a length of 6mm thrd rod. This was then mounted on a piece of scrap and held in the vice for shaping, again using spokeshaves, rasps, files and finally abrasives.
IMG_2058.JPG
(233.42 KiB)


Finally, I wanted to add a figurehead. Again, this was a first for me as I had never done any figure carving before. I wanted something simple and to reflect the end-user (think ZZ Top :lol: ) and so based it on a whittling exercise called 'The Five Minute Wizard' which is easily found on YouTube. I don't have many dedicated carving tools (a couple of gouges) so it was mainly done with conventional wood chisels and a little help from Dremel. A couple of tiny black beads (courtesy of SWMBO) made the eyes. The wood is Matai, an NZ native which is dense but proved not too difficult to carve and gave crisp edges (I tried the oak but the small detail just splintered).
IMG_2056.JPG
(417.94 KiB)


For the tip, I wanted something durable and had thought about a brass ferrule but realised this would be impractical on some surfaces and would wear and look scruffy. I decided on a conventional rubber tip which could be replaced as it wore. I used a brass hose connector with the hex head sawn-off and epoxied to the tip. It gave a perfect interference fit to a standard rubber chair tip.
IMG_2062.JPG
(122.45 KiB)


Lastly, I put a small collar of mahogany between the shaft and the handle for contrast and some gold (coloured) wire at the joints between the different wood types. The handle and collar were then attached to the threaded rod on the shaft using epoxy. The whole lot was finished with a couple of coats of wipe on poly.
IMG_2067.JPG
(460.15 KiB)


Just to reinforce the versatlity of the jig, I used it to make a new handle (again in Cherry) for a old 12 oz Warrington hammer that had belonged to my Dad and had been living in the bottom of my toolbox for about 40 years.
IMG_2112.JPG
(230.02 KiB)


Thanks for looking
Pete
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Re: Walking Cane

Postby Malc2098 » 24 Jul 2020, 20:18

Nice.
Malcolm
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Re: Walking Cane

Postby Woodbloke » 24 Jul 2020, 21:39

Sticks are quite good to make; I've done a few using antlers onto a walnut staff. The trick is to use a 6mm steel thread and epoxy to joint all the bits together. I didn't bother to get them dead round either as it's a stick and doesn't really matter; a spokeshave and sandpaper works fine :D - Rob
I no longer work for Axminster Tools & Machinery.
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