When to straighten a stick to make into a walking stick?

[Buckshot]

I've made walking sticks from cut sun shoots for many years, mostly hazel but also a few other varieties.
I've never really known when is the best time to bend the stick to straight? right after it's been cut or wait until it's dry?

Does it depend on the method used perhaps - would steam bending be better on green wood for instance?
Or does species make a difference?
Those that are experienced in such things - what's your preference?
Thanks

 

[bobnewboy]

I've always waited until the wood is at least dry, and preferably seasoned if you can. Greenwood can be strapped down straight to a stable piece of wood, or metal, and allowed to dry like that but that will take time - most woodworkers would allow a year per inch of thickness. I only use dry heat from a carefully-wielded heat gun, with a wipe of a natural oil (walnut, olive, w.h.y) beforehand if the stave’s bark is nice. Keep the heat moving over the bent area of stave. Patience is the key as many white woods will bend readily when sufficiently heated through. Don’t rush or hold the heat in one place as otherwise the surface will burn; but that’s ok if you like the effect and have peeled the stave’s bark initially. Ideally you’d make a wooden F-spanner of oak or similar (with rounded edged cutouts) to locally bend the very hot stave, while the straighter part is held in a vice. You’ll need to go a little past straight on the bending as the wood will generally try to recover its previous shape, but practice will get you there. It might take a couple of sessions with the heat gun to get the stave properly straight so I often find it a good idea to start on a couple at any one time. When you have your stave straight and cold I’d leave it a few days to rehydrate naturally before stressing it too much, or working it some more.

 

[bobnewboy]

I should add that I’ve used this method on hazel, ash, sweet chestnut and oak. It certainly doesn’t work on bamboo culms, but they do make a nice walking or beating stick - tough and light.

 

[Nice65]

Chestnut walking stick handles are bent as soon as they’re cut, we used to drop them into an oil drum of boiling water, peel and bend in a jig. Bent Blackthorn or whatever I try to dry straight with even air circulation.

I’ve had a few sticks develop a bend by me leaning them up in a crowded shed, the side nearest the wall stays moist longer and the drying side shrinks.

 

[Buckshot]

thanks chaps
So, one waits until it's dry and the other deals with it ASAP!
I guess it's personal preference then.
I've had sticks bend when lent against a wall as well. I've also used a piece of angle iron to brace a stick into to dry straight.
I've tried the little and often approach as it dries. a couple of times a week flexing the stick a little more over a few months until it's straight.
Interesting many thanks

 

[Broch]

I bind a bunch of sticks together when first cut - thick end to small to thick end (if you get my meaning) - I leave them to dry a couple of months; they can be stored end on like that. I take bunch apart, and steam straighten them as I use them. A particularly fine specimen I'll bind to a straight timber with spacers under any belly to over-bend it.

 

[Nice65]

thanks chaps
So, one waits until it's dry and the other deals with it ASAP!
I guess it's personal preference then.
I've had sticks bend when lent against a wall as well. I've also used a piece of angle iron to brace a stick into to dry straight.
I've tried the little and often approach as it dries. a couple of times a week flexing the stick a little more over a few months until it's straight.
Interesting many thanks

Probably the best answer to your question is "When I need it straight". The chestnut came out of the coppice by the thousand, boiled, peeled, bent. Then off to the NHS, before they started using the horrible aluminium ones with the complicated and environmentally toxic processes involved. Such a simple and renewable thing, the wooden stick, putting money into woodlanders pockets.

 

[Laurentius]

I read this in a difference sense, that is when is it necessary to bend a stick. As a rule I never do, the shape of the stick gives it character and a bent stick can work just as well as a straight one and act as a conversation piece.

 

[Broch]

I read this in a difference sense, that is when is it necessary to bend a stick. As a rule I never do, the shape of the stick gives it character and a bent stick can work just as well as a straight one and act as a conversation piece.

On top of that, a bent stick gives some shock absorption

 

[Stew]

thanks chaps
So, one waits until it's dry and the other deals with it ASAP!
I guess it's personal preference then.
I've had sticks bend when lent against a wall as well. I've also used a piece of angle iron to brace a stick into to dry straight.
I've tried the little and often approach as it dries. a couple of times a week flexing the stick a little more over a few months until it's straight.
Interesting many thanks

Yes - all of those!

The little and often is a good one though.

 

[eddieb]

i worked about 15 years ago with a chap who made and sold high quality walking sticks to posh hunters and what he did was collect a lot of sticks and let them dry for 18 months (eventually you'd have lots to work with) and then he would put them into a steaming tube and start to straighten them. Any sound of a crack is immedatley binned

I - straighten when green but mine are never perfect straight