using a little blade

jackknife said:
I've done this a great deal. I always have my hornbeam hiking staff, but along the trail someone with our party will want a hiking stick once they see the advantage to having one. I just find a down tree with a limb the right size and notch away around where I want to break it.

Once you make the stress line, its no big deal to break it off right where you want. Even easier if there is a close by forked tree with a fork thats pretty tight. You can use it like a pipe bender to put the stress right where you want it when you trim it off at the other end to fit the person.
Only takes a couple of minutes.
Click to expand...

That's a good technique, thanks! How about cleaning off the smaller branches off of the new hiking staff? Everytime I make one (for my kids usually), I have 30 or 40 branches from thumb size on down to trim off. What I usually do is stand the new hiking staff on end (it looks like a small Christmas tree), and use a larger knife to swing down parallel, to clean off all the little branches. I could use the saw on my sak, but that would be slooooow. Is there another way that I'm not seeing?

PS - I talked to one of my sisters, she has hornbeams growing on her property. I might have to make a trip and see her..... :D
 
sodak said:
That's a good technique, thanks! How about cleaning off the smaller branches off of the new hiking staff? Everytime I make one (for my kids usually), I have 30 or 40 branches from thumb size on down to trim off. What I usually do is stand the new hiking staff on end (it looks like a small Christmas tree), and use a larger knife to swing down parallel, to clean off all the little branches. I could use the saw on my sak, but that would be slooooow. Is there another way that I'm not seeing?

PS - I talked to one of my sisters, she has hornbeams growing on her property. I might have to make a trip and see her..... :D
Click to expand...

I just trim them off form the bottom side toward the top. It seems to cut easier goint with the "up" angle of the grain.

YES, by all means get some fairly strait hornbeam to make hiking staves out of. Very, very tough wood, but hard to find real strait. I think the gnarley look with some crooks add charater. Be very carefull when you cut it, seal the ends with wax or varnish to keep it from drying out too fast. if it dries too fast it will crack up. Put it down the basement for at least 6 months to dry and then its ready.

One more warning; don't try to remove the bark if its a real ridged piece with alot of the "muscle". For one thing its an exercise in futile behavior, and two you have to remove too much of the thick under bark. If too much is removed I feel it is not as strong. I keep the bark on, polish it with 0000 steel wool, and stain and finish with Helmsman spar urathane. You'll have a rustic looking stick that is strong as an Irish blackthorn. I usually put on a cotton jute twine wrapped handle that is soaked with spar urathane to make it like a forever handle. The jute soaks up the urathane and becomes a great non slip handle for winter or wet conditions.
 
jackknife,

I'm liking your ideas, and will have to try this out at some point!

~CanDo
 
CANDO-i saw that you were on here a while ago...i added some to the wilderness wiki under day pack.

yeah go ahead and use this; i did put it up on a public forum after all ;D.

i have a hornbeam stick that i have logged a few miles with. mostly i leave the stick behind though; if i need one i can find one that will do. i like to have my hands free for the most part. i also have another hornbeam stick that has been tucked up in the rafters of the garage for about a year and a half now. i am betting that it will be about as tough as iron. i treat my sticks with boiled linseed oil or danish oil, depending on the desired effect.
 
siguy said:
CANDO-i saw that you were on here a while ago...i added some to the wilderness wiki under day pack.

yeah go ahead and use this; i did put it up on a public forum after all ;D.

i have a hornbeam stick that i have logged a few miles with. mostly i leave the stick behind though; if i need one i can find one that will do. i like to have my hands free for the most part. i also have another hornbeam stick that has been tucked up in the rafters of the garage for about a year and a half now. i am betting that it will be about as tough as iron. i treat my sticks with boiled linseed oil or danish oil, depending on the desired effect.
Click to expand...

Awesome, thank you very much! I was wondering who wrote that article (I haven't completely memorized the universal index of IP addresses yet). The site will be down sporadically between about now and 10 PM EST until I upgrade the MySQL hosting, but please keep coming back. As I mentioned in the original post here, you're welcome to be an administrator if you are interested in that sort of thing.

~CanDo
 
Alright, siguy's post has been formatted into the Wiki! Check it out here!

Thanks again, siguy. People like you are turning the site into an excellent resource.
 
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