There is an aweful lot of nonsense written about sticks and preparing them. Ultimately it depends on how much you want to use it and how long you want it to last and how much you look after it.
My preference is to leave the bark on hazel and remove for holly (it comes up like ivory) and ash. Hazel has lovely bark and I tend to bundle my sticks up and tie them together and leave them to cure for at least a year in the loft or in an airy hut. By all means use fine steel wool to smooth down your hazel bark and use a spirit to remove the dust and then the traditional method of preserving would have been to use linseed oil to soak into the wood and this looks fantastic (but the stick needs oiled regularly) however, for working sticks that are used hard on the hill, like crooks and shooting sticks etc, I always use a very hard yacht varnish, use steel wool between coats to a nice finnish, a mat finish is nice. This ensures that the stick will last a very long time through all the knocks and water logging and generally hard time they get. An oiled stick will eventually have all the lower bark chip and flake off in these conditions. A brass ferrule is nice however, a rubber foot is quieter and is much prefered by many.
w00dsmoke
