Rad, I NEVER through away T-shirts. BUT, sometimes my wife removes them from the laundry pile, when they are full of holes and stained, and refuses to wash them any longer. Only then are they relegated to the rag bag. She just tossed my favorite St. Louis Cardinals T. ;(
Experimental cane in progress
Since I have made only a handful of sticks, I don't even know what I don't know yet. This project is an experiment, to experiment with staining oak, and to see if it is possible to leave bark on and have it stay on.
This stick was cut green in, I believe, December 2012. It was soaked in Pentacryl for a week soon after cutting it, and then soaked again for just a couple of days on the end that I left bark on. The idea was to minimize shrinkage and checking overall, but also to replace much of the water in the bark in an effort to stabilize it and with the goal of possibly keeping the bark on. It provides a comfortable, non-slip grip.
I haven't done serious woodworking since about 1962 in high school shop class. Several websites mention that oak is difficult to stain dark. I had some old Minwax red oak stain. I bought a small can of Minwax ebony stain and mixed a small amount with some of the red oak stain (perhaps 15% ?). I probably should have experimented with several small pieces of oak, but I just jumped right in and did it. I coated both the sapwood and the bark yesterday evening, and didn't wipe the stain off for about 15 minutes.
Here is how it looked just before sunset. I plan to apply satin polyurethane in a day or two. I hope it doesn't make the bark look awful.
![Wood Tints and shades Road surface Grass Art]()
If this works out well, then I have a similar piece of oak that my son would like made into a walking stick. He liked it because the bark remains on the grip, and so this experiment will tell me whether it is reasonable to expect bark to remain on a stick if pre-treated properly.
This stick was cut green in, I believe, December 2012. It was soaked in Pentacryl for a week soon after cutting it, and then soaked again for just a couple of days on the end that I left bark on. The idea was to minimize shrinkage and checking overall, but also to replace much of the water in the bark in an effort to stabilize it and with the goal of possibly keeping the bark on. It provides a comfortable, non-slip grip.
I haven't done serious woodworking since about 1962 in high school shop class. Several websites mention that oak is difficult to stain dark. I had some old Minwax red oak stain. I bought a small can of Minwax ebony stain and mixed a small amount with some of the red oak stain (perhaps 15% ?). I probably should have experimented with several small pieces of oak, but I just jumped right in and did it. I coated both the sapwood and the bark yesterday evening, and didn't wipe the stain off for about 15 minutes.
Here is how it looked just before sunset. I plan to apply satin polyurethane in a day or two. I hope it doesn't make the bark look awful.
If this works out well, then I have a similar piece of oak that my son would like made into a walking stick. He liked it because the bark remains on the grip, and so this experiment will tell me whether it is reasonable to expect bark to remain on a stick if pre-treated properly.
Attachments
1 - 3 of 8 Posts
1 - 3 of 8 Posts
