JUNE 2015
Making Walking or Hiking Sticks
We occasionally leave busy cities and towns to find restorative solitude and beauty in our forests and wilderness areas. Hunting and fishing lead many of us there, but these activities hardly encompass the possibilities for recreation or hobby. Simple walking and forms of hiking are pleasant and healthy diversions. The value of this type of exercise is continually lauded in medical and psychological research.
Walking on forest paths, sometimes created by deer or other animals, can be a challenge at times. Having a basic walking/hiking stick seems almost a necessity to clear pathways of briars or the occasional spider web or snake. A staff or stick gives us better footing through rocks or mud as well as helps a bit on the hills that we encounter. While we might simply find and grab a stick along our way, the better prepared probably have a walking stick already available.
One of my hobbies is crafting distinctive walking/hiking sticks from saplings found on the many acres of woods that my extended family have in the Dodson and Sikes area. I give these walking sticks as gifts to family and friends and sell some in a farmers and artisan market. Finding appropriately shaped and sized saplings as candidates for walking sticks is an initial step. One in thousands of saplings that I encounter is actually chosen as a potential walking stick. Although many species of tree saplings can eventually make attractive and functional hiking sticks, some types of wood more frequently bow or crack during an aging and drying process of several months after cutting. The stroll through the woods to find a few more likely saplings to harvest is for me a particularly enjoyable part of the overall project.
Saplings are more often debarked or shaved in making walking sticks, but the option exists of allowing some of the bark or sapwood to remain. Removing the bark from a sapling is much easier if this is done immediately, or at least soon, after the sapling is cut. What was long ago a common piece of woodworking equipment on Southern farms and ranches is very seldom found these days. Known as a shaving horse, the device clamps down on the sapling, so that a draw shaver or knife can be wielded to remove bark and wood from the sapling. English and continental styles of shaving horses exist and have somewhat different designs. The accompanying photo shows a shaving horse that I constructed using an English shaving horse design. Special tools such as shaving horses and draw knifes make this step a little easier or go somewhat faster, but are not required though to strip bark or wood from a sapling.
We occasionally leave busy cities and towns to find restorative solitude and beauty in our forests and wilderness areas. Hunting and fishing lead many of us there, but these activities hardly encompass the possibilities for recreation or hobby. Simple walking and forms of hiking are pleasant and healthy diversions. The value of this type of exercise is continually lauded in medical and psychological research.
Walking on forest paths, sometimes created by deer or other animals, can be a challenge at times. Having a basic walking/hiking stick seems almost a necessity to clear pathways of briars or the occasional spider web or snake. A staff or stick gives us better footing through rocks or mud as well as helps a bit on the hills that we encounter. While we might simply find and grab a stick along our way, the better prepared probably have a walking stick already available.
One of my hobbies is crafting distinctive walking/hiking sticks from saplings found on the many acres of woods that my extended family have in the Dodson and Sikes area. I give these walking sticks as gifts to family and friends and sell some in a farmers and artisan market. Finding appropriately shaped and sized saplings as candidates for walking sticks is an initial step. One in thousands of saplings that I encounter is actually chosen as a potential walking stick. Although many species of tree saplings can eventually make attractive and functional hiking sticks, some types of wood more frequently bow or crack during an aging and drying process of several months after cutting. The stroll through the woods to find a few more likely saplings to harvest is for me a particularly enjoyable part of the overall project.
Saplings are more often debarked or shaved in making walking sticks, but the option exists of allowing some of the bark or sapwood to remain. Removing the bark from a sapling is much easier if this is done immediately, or at least soon, after the sapling is cut. What was long ago a common piece of woodworking equipment on Southern farms and ranches is very seldom found these days. Known as a shaving horse, the device clamps down on the sapling, so that a draw shaver or knife can be wielded to remove bark and wood from the sapling. English and continental styles of shaving horses exist and have somewhat different designs. The accompanying photo shows a shaving horse that I constructed using an English shaving horse design. Special tools such as shaving horses and draw knifes make this step a little easier or go somewhat faster, but are not required though to strip bark or wood from a sapling.
Stripping bark and aging the sapling are early stages in making hand-crafted hiking sticks. Afterwards there's a shaping and sizing process, and then comes the sanding and finishing/preserving of the stick. Before applying varnish or finishing wax, the wood can be inscribed or burned to personalize the stick. Rawhide straps or paracord wrappings are often added, for gripping purposes, to the top of sticks, and cushioned or rubber tips are needed to protect the end of the stick which constantly comes in contact with the ground. Metal spikes are an alternative as a stick tip and can provide better grips on certain surfaces, but continuing spike usage can lead to cracks or splintering on the lower part of the stick.
For those interested in making your own walking stick for a birthday or Christmas gifts for yourselves or others, I'm willing to do a basic workshop on this topic in the near future. We might meet one Saturday at noon at the old Hudson Interdenominational Tabernacle (off Hwy. 34 about ten miles north of Winnfield) for an hour or so, and I can pass out copies of pages describing this process and answer questions. I'll show examples, too, of different walking stick styles and designs that folks might like to use as possible models for their own creative choices. Just let me know if there are at least a few of you interested (steve-payne1@live.com) in this free workshop.
Some Boy and Girl Scouts probably received merit badges at one time for making hiking/walking sticks, and perhaps they still do today. I never had that experience as an adolescent. If retirement can be a second childhood, stick making might be a creative and enjoyable hobby for the young and the older.
This blog includes articles on the outdoors and environment submitted by Steve Payne to The Piney Woods Journal. Appointed as a correspondent on the outdoors and environment for this monthly journal based in Dodson/Winnfield, Louisiana, his articles started appearing in May of 2015.
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