Walking sticks and staffs

[WeedAndCoffee]

Hey Pattree, I've been making mine for >20 years now. The wife still has the first one I made. Right now I have a few, but the one I keep in the car is a Moses stick with a snake head and a fully carved shaft. It's made from a piece of spruce driftwood from the Bay of Fundy, where we have the world's highest tides. It has a split right up the whole shaft but I'd trust it to get me up the Matterhorn. I'll get some pics into my Proton Drive as I get settled in here.

 

[JFW]

I've used a treking stick since I was 30 and found it great for downhill walking, saves the knees. Over the last few years I have used a staff. Piece of ash harvested from my local woods, debarked, dried and straightened it is about 5'6", treated with Danish oil and a steel alpine ferrule. I've carved a ring notch around the top for a guy line and use a large (6 loop) prussik loop, in paracord, as an adjustable wrist strap that I can position anywhere on the staff. It pretty much covers all bases for me, staff, resting pole, stream crossings, shelter pole, animal defence and learning pole, and if I'm wearing my poncho I just put up with the Gandalf comments.

 

[Broch]

Some recent makes

 

[StevieE]

How do you get them so straight broch? I use a heat gun on mine on a vice work bench

 

[Broch]

To be fair, I have a lot of hazel to choose from. If a stick needs straightening it goes in a piece of plastic down pipe with a wallpaper steam generator blowing steam in one end. The fourth one from the right is wild rose stem which is always curved so that took some straightening! The one on the left is holly which is always straight.

 

[StevieE]

Really clever. We have an abundance of hazel growing naturally iny area too

 

[StevieE]

Broch. If you mind can you send me a picture of your streaming equipment and method. I have probably all that equipment spread over the place but it sounds like such a brilliant idea.

 

[Keith_Beef]

I'm going away on a bushcraft training class this coming weekend, so I bought a basha and put it up in the garden this morning to check that it's got no defects and to air it and get rid of the chemical smell that synthetic stuff usually has.

So I got a staff that I cut a few years ago, probably hazel. I didn't think it needed any straightening, but I drilled two holes in it and put pieces of stainless tube in them. I anchored one end of the basha to the ash-leaved make and the other end to the staff, a line along the ridge of the basha and then another line across the staff to stabilise it.

Here's the top end of the staff.


And the general view.


I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get the tension exactly right, but I'll say that there are "gutters" to carry any rain or dew down to the low end.

 

[StevieE]

Hope the class goes really well for you Keith. Looks fantastic

 

[Falstaff]

Broch. If you mind can you send me a picture of your streaming equipment and method. I have probably all that equipment spread over the place but it sounds like such a brilliant idea.

Me too! A post if you please for general consumption would be appreciated.

 

[Falstaff]

@Keith/General; Nice one. For a regular staff some holes are useful, but not so easy to do ad hoc on a random branch e.g. on your course maybe. Some folk cut a groove or couple of notches, and some have already said they use the loop of their prussick handstrap.
I find a clove hitch, maybe with a extra turn below, holds tight enough even on alloy poles. It also enables easy adjustment when lines go slack etc.

Whereabouts is your course? It looks like there'll be a bit of wind and rain this weekend down south, which although not always pleasant, is actually a good thing for learning on a course! Good luck & Enjoy!

 

[StevieE]

I've never tried a prusic hand strap on my sticks handle before. Interesting. Always use snake knots.

 

[Keith_Beef]

@Keith/General; Nice one. For a regular staff some holes are useful, but not so easy to do ad hoc on a random branch e.g. on your course maybe. Some folk cut a groove or couple of notches, and some have already said they use the loop of their prussick handstrap.
I find a clove hitch, maybe with a extra turn below, holds tight enough even on alloy poles. It also enables easy adjustment when lines go slack etc.

Whereabouts is your course? It looks like there'll be a bit of wind and rain this weekend down south, which although not always pleasant, is actually a good thing for learning on a course! Good luck & Enjoy!

I have a couple of thumb sticks at our house down in the south west, cut from a sweet chestnut in the garden; I bored a hole in each to add a string loop, but this is to hang them from a hook, rather than have them standing on the floor. They are very useful for lowering and raising the step ladder to the attic bedroom.

In the past, a multi-blade pocket knife would often have a gimlet or awl for making holes; useful for putting a hole in a leather strap but also for putting a hole in a stick.

My course is in Brittany, a bit over an hour and a half to the west of Rennes. There's been a bit of rain and more is forecast; good news, because this means that the prefect won't order a ban on making fires.

 

[Falstaff]

I know the Swiss Army knives still have a very useful gimlet awl, but don't seem to see it on much else these days. Wish I was in Brittany, is this the ex-UK guy with woodland on a river?

@Stevie E - I think the prussick needs something to stop the starting "cross-bar" locking loop from rotating and loosening off. I tried taking the free ends an extra turn around the locking bar, seemed to work sort of. I also tried a sort of reverse prussick where, instead of the coils working inwards, they went outwards, then the extra turn around the central locking bar. It looked messy but was more solid and took weight as a hand strap.
The snake knot is far more secure, the problem only comes in trying to slacken it off to relocate it!.

 

[Broch]

Broch. If you mind can you send me a picture of your streaming equipment and method. I have probably all that equipment spread over the place but it sounds like such a brilliant idea.

OK, it's a bit crude, and I daresay there are some on here with better methods, but it works for me.

Here's the kit - a wallpaper steamer, a plastic down pipe, and two bits of rag.



I wrap one piece of rag around the steamer pipe and insert it in the end of the down pipe. It doesn't have to be tight, just a firm fit.



The stick goes in from the other end and I insert the second piece of rag loosely. I then run it until the tank runs out, usually just less than an hour. I have the pipe on a slope (the brickwork slopes slightly up to the garage) so any condensation runs out. Note, the plastic pipe gets a bit soft at 100C so don't try picking it up! A steel pipe would be better but I've never got around to finding one.

Finally, I take the stick out, bend it by hand (with gloves on), and sometimes strap it to a flat bit of something like 2x3" to keep it straight while it cools and dries. Sometimes it's necessary to 'over bend' it for it to set straight.