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Dave Polaschek
2070 posts
and
44 followers
in almost 3 years
in almost 3 years
More from Dave Polaschek
Building a cane #13: Finished the carving, finishing
Building a cane #12: Finishing the handle, carving on the shaft
Building a cane #11: Shaping the handle more, grain filling, and fitting the tip on the shaft
Building a cane #10: Shaping the handle
Building a cane #9: Hole for the peg, shaping begins
Building a cane #14: Joining the pieces
This is
part 14
in a
14 part
series:
Building a cane
Today’s 90 minutes of shop time started with some shaping of the handle. I dry fit the shaft into the handle, and then shaped the piece of granadillo so all the curves were smooth.
Then I got out the mallet, and pounded the live oak peg through the holes in the handle and the shaft. They were ¼ inch (6mm) holes, with the one in the shaft offset by 1mm toward the shoulder of the joint. As you can see, I mushroomed the last bit of the peg pretty severely.
Then I got out the mallet, and pounded the live oak peg through the holes in the handle and the shaft. They were ¼ inch (6mm) holes, with the one in the shaft offset by 1mm toward the shoulder of the joint. As you can see, I mushroomed the last bit of the peg pretty severely.
The pointy end of the peg got bent somewhat by its trip through the holes.
The tenon on the cane shaft was intentionally a bit long. After getting the joint together, I added some small wedges (of soft maple, I think) to fill gaps.
I also filled the tiny gaps around the peg with ash sawdust and CA glue.
Also filled around the tenon.
And after some sanding to clean things up, I put another coat of oil on everything. I can still see a few spots where there’s open grain, so I think I need at least 3-4 more coats of Tru-Oil before I can call this done.
Overall, I think it’s looking pretty good, though.
May you have the day you deserve!
2 Comments
Nice work Dave. The handle looks like it would work well for self-defense too.
So, besides sleeping, what are you doing for the rest of the 1,350 minutes of your day?
So, besides sleeping, what are you doing for the rest of the 1,350 minutes of your day?
"Duck and Bob would be out doin some farming with funny hats on." chrisstef
Thanks, Duck! Yeah, the cane would work well if one had to defend oneself from a bunch of young ruffians.
Typical day (without errands) is wake up, read the morning news, cook breakfast, shower, walk around our “block”, then an hour or two in the shop. If there’s time before lunch, I’ll get horizontal and give my back a rest. Cook and eat lunch, or go out to one of our local joints. Nap (1 hour). Afternoon is online time like this, then start cooking dinner. Eat dinner, walk around the block again, maybe watch a TV show, or maybe more shop time, then bed with about an hour of reading. I’m sleeping about 12 hours a day, so my body’s still busy healing, I figure.
Days with errands, we’ll end up spending 3-4 hours in town doing various things. Tomorrow my sweetie has an eye doctor appointment, so I’ll drive us in, then go pick up my prescriptions while she’s talking to the eye doc about her cataracts, then we’ll have lunch at a Chinese restaurant we like, pick up two pair of jeans I had hemmed up (odd size legs in a world where only even inseams exist) and drop off two more, then home.
I’m not back to helping in the yard yet (mostly my duty is digging out chamisa and winter fat plants, plus hauling stuff). That’ll probably be Thanksgiving or so. I’m also getting one of my motorcycles (the BMW K1600 GTL) ready for sale, and slowly working on getting my computer lab up and running so I can access it from anywhere in the world, and moving all of our “cloud stuff” from iCloud to our own servers, since I no longer trust Apple to do the right thing.
Oh, I’m also finally reading Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE, which is a decent book, but thick enough that it sat on my shelf for over a decade before I had enough time to set aside for reading it.
Typical day (without errands) is wake up, read the morning news, cook breakfast, shower, walk around our “block”, then an hour or two in the shop. If there’s time before lunch, I’ll get horizontal and give my back a rest. Cook and eat lunch, or go out to one of our local joints. Nap (1 hour). Afternoon is online time like this, then start cooking dinner. Eat dinner, walk around the block again, maybe watch a TV show, or maybe more shop time, then bed with about an hour of reading. I’m sleeping about 12 hours a day, so my body’s still busy healing, I figure.
Days with errands, we’ll end up spending 3-4 hours in town doing various things. Tomorrow my sweetie has an eye doctor appointment, so I’ll drive us in, then go pick up my prescriptions while she’s talking to the eye doc about her cataracts, then we’ll have lunch at a Chinese restaurant we like, pick up two pair of jeans I had hemmed up (odd size legs in a world where only even inseams exist) and drop off two more, then home.
I’m not back to helping in the yard yet (mostly my duty is digging out chamisa and winter fat plants, plus hauling stuff). That’ll probably be Thanksgiving or so. I’m also getting one of my motorcycles (the BMW K1600 GTL) ready for sale, and slowly working on getting my computer lab up and running so I can access it from anywhere in the world, and moving all of our “cloud stuff” from iCloud to our own servers, since I no longer trust Apple to do the right thing.
Oh, I’m also finally reading Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE, which is a decent book, but thick enough that it sat on my shelf for over a decade before I had enough time to set aside for reading it.
May you have the day you deserve!
More from Dave Polaschek
Building a cane #13: Finished the carving, finishing
Building a cane #12: Finishing the handle, carving on the shaft
Building a cane #11: Shaping the handle more, grain filling, and fitting the tip on the shaft
Building a cane #10: Shaping the handle
Building a cane #9: Hole for the peg, shaping begins
