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