Making Hiking Staffs

[SctDad]

I was watching some people at our Fall Fellowship for the OA this weekend, and I saw some of them carving out their hiking staffs that they got while they were there.

 

I was wondering if there was anyone out there that might be able to point me to a website that can help me with some carving patterns. I am thinking about doinng one myself.

 

Also any lace patterns for handles would be nice.

[ChiefThundercloud]

I'd be happy to help. Check out my hiking staff website http://diamondwillow.homestead.com

then drop me a line on your ideas. I'll help you in any way that I can.

 

Most people who carve hiking staffs, do it without a pattern. Each staff is different in size so patterns don't apply.(This message has been edited by ChiefThundercloud)

[Eagle92]

SctDad,

So how did you like your first fellowship, despite the rain. Sorry I couldn't talk more, but I told yuo i'ld be running around with my head chopped off.

 

At the Lodge banquet, I'll intro you to one of my chapter's members who had the Eagle head carved onto his staff. Also did you know the Lodge Adviser is a passionate wood carver?

[SctDad]

Eagle92

 

Had a good time. Next time I think we can skip the rain and cold wind.

 

The banquet I think is a conflict for our Cub Schedule. I think that I heard that the banquet is on the weekend of the 8th. We will be at the Salute Festival that weekend. If for some reason we do not Go I will see about coming. Do you have some information you can e-mail me?

 

Anyway, I was looking for the help with the carving. I am going to be looking for a staff soon and I am looking to make it interesting.

[packsaddle]

As ChiefThundercloud says, mostly we let imagination take its toll.

In this part of the country we have different woods available compared to the far north. The wood will give you vastly different options for carving and I've tried a large variety of wood. I try to carve a new staff each year and I have a couple I've been working on for a long time. I'm just a beginner but the boys really like to watch and offer ideas, some of them are great ideas too.

I picked up some nice carving tools from Highland Hardware in Atlanta as a father's day gift to get started:

http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/index.asp

but there are many other sources for tools. And you can get ideas for designs in books on the subject or even online. Just search around for woodcarving designs.

 

Just don't go cheap on tools and remember that they are really, really sharp. They cut through flesh as if it isn't there if you slip. I jammed a gouge across the end of my thumb and up under my thumbnail last summer. At least it was a really clean wound. The boys were impressed by that too. Be careful.

 

[Stosh]

A magnifying glass or wood-burning iron will do a nice job of decorating a staff as well for those who prefer to burn themselves instead of cutting themselves.

 

Parachute cord with a repeated half-hitch will put a nice spiral ridge on a grip, tighter the knot, faster the spiral. It is also easy to take off if the rope is needed.

 

Everyone does it differently. I use a larger/heavier staff rather than a hiking staff. It is pine closet rod, has a hook on it and is 6' long rather than the traditional 5'. Because of my personal preference, the boys in my troop also use a 6'-closet rod staff with hook, it makes a nice patrol flag pole for the PL's.

 

Stosh

 

Stosh

[shortridge]

Another option: I have heard of, but not yet tried, "smoking" a staff to decorate it. From Indian Scout Craft and Lore, by Charles Eastman (Dover Publications, p. 92), discussing "wand games":

 

"To decorate in Indian fashion, you must take off with a sharp knife a long strip of bark; then, having scraped off all the rest, wind your ribbon of bark spirally round the peeled wand. After fastening each end securely, hold it over a smudge fire until it is well smoked. Then remove the strip and you will find a spiral of white against the deep yellow of the uncovered wood. Sometimes two strips are wound in opposite directions, leaving yellow diamonds bordered with white."

[SSScout]

From "Matching Mountains with the Boy Scout Uniform"

by Edward F. Reimer *1929* E.P. Dutton

pg.93....

" The Boy Scout staff has a score of practical uses. When Sir Robert Baden-Powell designed his bronze 'Scout with Staff' he gave the staff the loftiest and most prominent place in the statue.'

 

The next page pictures no fewer than 20 uses: Patrol flag pole, lashed together taller flag pole, uprights & ridgepoles, tripod clothes rack, tripod pritilatter (wash station?), tripod seat rack, bridge construction & brace, aid in jumping (pole vault over stream), blanket stretcher, splint, maintaining order at parades, mast for raft, marked to measure distance, marked to measure heights and distance (sighting), scaled to estimate weight (balance beam), pushing back brambles, poking holes, rack to keep things off ground, handle for camp broom, aid in climbing, aid in reaching across,etc.

The next pages (Pg.94 to 96) detail the 'Manual of the Staff'. How to carry, march with, and 'exhibit' the Scout Staff.

"By the Numbers"

"FIRST: Fall In is executed with the staff at ORDER STAFF. Fall Out, Rest, and At Ease, are executed as without staves (( Ed: plural of staff!!)). On resuming Attention, the position of order staff is taken."

 

To be precise, the Scout Staff seems to have held a larger place in the Scout World at one time. It is obvious that a bunch of standard size and marked staves (!) have a multitude of uses.

 

Try http://sne.tripod.com/hikestaf.htm for more ideas.

 

 

[AnniePoo]

Our Webelo I den is making them next month. I cut the sticks in August, we de-barked them on our August camping trip, and will finish them off over the winter. The kids will trim them, sand them down, and have the option of decorating them with any combination of carving, staining, painting, or woodburning. I took our Bear leader out to cut sticks for his den in September, and also cut enough for a friend who is a Bear leader in a neighboring community. The kids are pretty excited about it, and we're letting the siblings do them also.

 

Most of ours are hickory (saplings), although we have a few cherry & aspen. Poplar is a good wood for this also, but we don't have it near here. Hickory saplings are numerous in our area, and are strong and straight. Cherry dries nice and light, and aspen is very light and strong. My mother-in-law has a couple of hundred acres of woods near here, with a million hickory saplings, so I cut approximately 1/10 of the hickory saplings in a 20-acre area.

[packsaddle]

I had been told that Pacific madrone was the best wood for a hiking staff and I picked some up on travel. It is beautiful and strong, but it's really hard and doesn't carve well.

I also like the cherry, as AnniePoo says. Hickory is really heavy and it is terrible for carving IMHO. But I do like some of the softer woods like lodgepole pine, douglas fir, redwood. Right now I have discovered that sweetgum is really lightweight when dry and, for its weight, one of the strongest staffs I have ever seen. And it's almost worthless for anything else. If it carves well, I'm going to take it very seriously.

[shortridge]

"To be precise, the Scout Staff seems to have held a larger place in the Scout World at one time. It is obvious that a bunch of standard size and marked staves (!) have a multitude of uses."

 

I wonder how much the advent of trekking poles changed that, or whether the popularity of staves just gradually declined for other reasons. I recently did a long-distance hike using a pair of lightweight collapsible trekking poles, and they were a godsend. I can't imagine using two wooden staves for the same purpose.

 

The staves sold at our council camp trading posts get ridiculed by a lot of Scouts because they're basically broomsticks sold for a large markup. But a well-decorated and -crafted staff will attract a lot of oohs and ahhs.

[Buffalo Skipper]

I really like cypress. It is strong, light-weight, rot resistant, takes a finish well (or weathers well without any) and is not bad for carving simple things like wood spirits and the like. I have one which has a slight crook, but I am carving it's replacement which is straight as an arrow. I really don't know why these are not utilized more for hiking sticks.

[SctDad]

I saw one this weekend that was surprisingly light weight and strong. The guy said that it was cut from the flower part of the catcus. The guys mother-in-law lives in New Mexico and that is where he got it. I think it was actually lighter than my commercial collapsible pole.

 

Anyway, thanks for the help. Keep the ideas coming. I will be looking for a good stick this week.

[Gold Winger]

I like aluminum, collapsable, with a spring loaded tip. None of this old fashioned wood for me.

[Eagle92]

Does anyone have a copy of a handout called "the Uses of a Scout Staff" which I believe had some of BP's drawing on it? this was sheet of paper I got from the BROWNSEA 22 training I did way back and showed you soemof the many ways yu can use a sciout staff, i.e. survival kit, orienteering, scale, ruler, etc. I know I have mine somewhere, btu can't find the right box at this time.

Eagle92