Friday 2 October 2020

And now for something…

 …completely different. I have always had hobbies even as a kid I collected coins (I still have them) stamps even bottle tops. You name it I have probably collected it. I remember years back that the Sun newspaper did an article to find the saddest man in Britain. The man they found collected bricks, at the time I had more bricks than he did and I collected old topographical postcards (I also still have them) which wasn’t as popular then as it is now.  Since the 1970’s photography has been at the top of my hobby list, and always will be, however much to my wife’s despair, I now have another hobby, stick making. It’s still very much work in progress, I’m still learning, but I really enjoy the process of making them. In fact, I was hoping to join a stick-making club to learn how to carve them and to use other materials for the handles but Covid-19 has put that on hold. As I say, it is work in progress but here are some of the sticks I have made.










3 comments:

  1. Your sticks are pretty impressive Ron, you must've been doing them a while to have so many. Do you make them from stuff you find or do you have to buy speciality wood? and is it all done by hand? the smooth finishes look superb. You should do a post on the process, I'm intrigued. But anyway, your confession about the bricks had me laughing out loud, well done for owning up to it, and that's coming from someone who used to collect the stickers off fruit, beer mats, and now dead insects. :-)

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  2. I must have been making them for around a couple of years now although I have had some of the wood a lot longer than that as you have to let it dry. That‘s the wood I have found, the few bits of wood I have bought from a specialist wood supplier is already dry so I can use it straight away. The handles are all made by hand using files and sandpaper to get the finish then given a few coats of Danish Oil. I straighten the shanks using a paint stripper hot air gun and a jig then join the shank and handle together. Beer mats I can relate too as I had a collection of them but I gave them away, which strangely I now regret, but fruit stickers and dead insects are a new one on me.

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    Replies
    1. Very interesting Ron, thanks. Yes I too regret disposing of (in my case being told to get rid of) my beer mat collection back in the mid-80s, I had thousands going back to the 1960s, my dad hoyed them in a skip when my room got done out as there was nowhere to put them (I had them all over my walls.) Sad day. Cheers.

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