Another hour, some more progress. I started rounding the shafts with my homemade spokeshave, but that’s set for a pretty rough cut, and I was getting some chatter, especially when working against the grain. So after finishing with that, I got out the big HNT Gordon shave, which I keep set fairly fine, and went over them again. Not quite as smooth as a baby’s butt, but I got almost all the chatter out.
Both cane shafts are still 4 feet long for now, but I think the plan for my next shop session is to start carving some designs on these, though I also have some handle shaping I could work on.
I don't know if you are keeping the "hand tool finish" look, but I often will use a half-pipe of PVC or a hole drilled through a 2x4, then halved as a radius sanding block to work down bumps on long round things.
A cane isn’t all that hard of a project. But I discovered a lot of things I had done in the wrong order when I made the one for myself back in 2016, and I’m trying to correct all of those and document things this time around. I think I’m doing ok so far, though I can’t decide whether I should shape the handles or start carving the shafts today. But it’s a couple hours from when I can head out to the shop for the day, so I’ll hopefully figure it out.
Splint, I think I’m keeping a hand-tool finish, but with the carving I’m planning, there may be some sandpaper involved before I’m done yet, especially on the handle. But even working against the grain, I can get a pretty good finish with my shaves.
Steve, at an inch, I think you’ve dropped to supporting about 300# rather than 500 for an inch and a quarter. The strength goes up really fast once you get larger than an inch diameter. I see almost zero grain runout on the cane shafts, so that helps me believe they’ll be strong enough, but it would be horrible to have a cane snap on someone who’s depending on it.
