black thorn stick

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mentalnurse

Full Member
Apr 4, 2007
965
0
51
ashton-in-makerfield,wigan
i am after a black thorn stick (a heavy one) it can be already a walking stick or a blank for me to make up my self as i have started stick making , ( no black thorn around mine to gather myself right now) any help would be great.thanks
 

joejoe

On a new journey
Jan 18, 2007
600
1
71
washington
hello i think the site is called the stickman. hwe sells sticks and blanks, or the othr one i can think of is bobs sticks. will try andfind them for you regards joe
 

saddle_tramp

Need to contact Admin...
Jul 13, 2008
605
1
West Cornwall
hey thats cheating

I thought the joy of owning a blackthorn stick, was the blood, sweat and tears of cutting the darn thing in the first place.
 

spiritofold

Banned
May 7, 2004
701
1
52
Winchester
www.spiritofold.co.uk
Seems that sending by royal mail, the maximum length can be 1.4 m, which is a bugger,
unless your happy with that size? Once you start looking into private carriers it goes into stupid money.....

A word of warning about blackthorn, its an excellent wood to carve, you can get excellent detail in it, but its a real sod for checking/splitting unless its seasoned, and even then its worth acclimatising it to the place where your going to carve it. Let me know the sort of sizes your after and i'll see what i can do...

Andy >>>>>-----------------------------------<>
 

mentalnurse

Full Member
Apr 4, 2007
965
0
51
ashton-in-makerfield,wigan
hi, sticks up to 120cm to 130cm would be great and about 3cm across, if there is off shoots ie. the thorns leave them as stumps about a cm long (to cove the srinking in seasoning) i intend to not use them until at least next year or even the year after to give them loads of time to season and to srink. your a star for looking for me let me know if you have any luck .many thanks carl
 

spiritofold

Banned
May 7, 2004
701
1
52
Winchester
www.spiritofold.co.uk
Ok, i have the sticks now and can get more. Let me know how many you need.
Postage is going to be &#163;7 for 1, 2- 3 sticks should be covered for a tenner, If its anymore then i'll cover it :)

Just so's everyones in the know, im not selling the sticks, just charging postage. The wood is free.... ;)

Andy >>>>>------------------------------------<>
 

chris7273

Member
Jan 2, 2008
33
0
Belgium
I am curious : black thorn, is it Prunus Spinosa ? if yes we call it "prunelier" or "prunelle" in French, it means "small plum", not quite original ;-) )

Why do you want black thorn for a stick ? I suppose the wood is special but can someone tell me how special it can be ? Moreover, here in Belgium, the bush trunk is hard to find straight, it is often twisted.

I know prunus spinosa for its fruits. I harvest them after the first freeze (should come soon), put them in spirit with sugar and after 4 weeks : a great liqueur.
 

spiritofold

Banned
May 7, 2004
701
1
52
Winchester
www.spiritofold.co.uk
Yes, prunus spinosa.

Its considered a very magical wood over here, steeped in history and witchcraft :)
Also good for clouting people, the Irish make fighting sticks from it.
Theres loads of the straight stuff where i live, also special bits that grow twisty, though they are rarer to find. Often, if you get stuck with a blackthorn thorn the wound will turn
septic.

Andy....
 

Exbomz

Full Member
Oct 19, 2004
198
0
East Sussex
No relation, friend etc (just a very happy repeat cutomer) but Keith (The Stickman) is superb, and no minimum order rubbish etc:

http://www.thestickman.co.uk/

I would add that Hihgland Horn http://www.highlandhorn.co.uk/index.asp are superb too, though the 2 are slightly different in what they stock. Choice is yours.

As to the thorns, my own experience is they go deep and nearly always go bad :dunno: . This site seemed quite interresting comment:

http://bodd.cf.ac.uk/BotDermFolder/BotDermR/ROSA.html

Prunus spinosa L.
Blackthorn, Sloe Tree
This species forms a very spiny shrub (Polunin 1969) with a long-standing reputation for inflicting thorn injuries that take longer than expected to heal: "The thorns have something of a poisonous nature in the autumn" (Withering 1787); "From some effects which I have repeatedly observed to follow the ***** of the thorns, I have reason to believe there is something poisonous in them …" (Withering 1801).

Buhr (1960) reported that thorn injuries of the hands from this plant in 10 patients, most of whom were agricultural workers, required nearly four times longer outpatient treatment than did thorn injuries from hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.) or from gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa L., fam. Grossulariaceae).

Uteau & Bouget (1928) held that the fly-infested putrefying bodies of birds and small animals spitted on the thorns by shrikes accounted for the inflammation that occurs after blackthorn ******. These authors also noted that they had seen two cases of thorn-induced tetanus. However, Buhr (1960) recovered no unusual bacteria or other pathogens either from his patients or from cultures of blackthorns obtained from hedges. However, he did note also that one of his 10 patients developed tetanus of moderate severity. Other case reports include a horseman who unknowingly sustained a deeply penetrating thorn injury whilst leaping a hedge and who became increasingly debilitated until the thorn was eventually discovered 6 years later and removed (Wardell 1851); a 9-year-old schoolboy in whom the broken tip of a thorn produced a profuse foreign body reaction (Latham 1960); and a 61-year-old housewife who developed dyspnoea and a generalised vesicular rash, infected in places, after scratching her arm on a blackthorn (Cashmore 1960). It would appear that the tip of the rough long brittle thorn of the blackthorn snaps off more readily in the skin than does the short needle-sharp point of hawthorn.

Dermatitis from sloes is noted under Prunus domestica.
 

spamel

Banned
Feb 15, 2005
6,833
21
48
Silkstone, Blighty!
Very interesting, I suppose I was lucky when I picked sloes last year as I didn't have any troubles. I'll bear it in mind in future though. Is it fair to say that shrikes may be spotted in a stand of Blackthorn?
 

Nonimouse

Member
Sep 17, 2008
32
0
Somerset
Blackthorn like one or two rosaceae, including apple has a an interesting lichen growing on it that can cause eye problems and makes wounds mildly septic.

Blackthorn makes a nice cudgel or nightmans stick but that's about all; if mystical is what you want then you opt for Rowan, Oak, Hawthorn or Alder; if practical and long lasting is what you want then Hazel. Cherry,Oak and Ash are the name of the game.

If you want staffs. quarterstaffs, magic wands, walking sticks, cudgels or mashy nibbletts let me know and I willgather you a couple or so as I have the selection of thousands! I can do walnut, apple, pear and elm as well
 

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