Making a Walking Stick

     There are two ways to make a walking stick.  This first method (aka the easy way) is to grab a bow saw, go to the woods and find a fairly straight sapling, cut it down, trim it to the required length also removing any branches, and walk out of the woods employing the newly created stick as a aide for balance, a weapon against aggressive Hainesport turkeys, or a tool for clearing away spider webs and low hanging branches.  Or you can do it the hard way.  That's usually my way.
     The hard way begins in the same manner as the easy way.  One goes to the woods and finds an appropriate sapling and cuts it down.  The rest of the process occurs at home.

I brought home two saplings.  One was chosen, and one became firewood.  The stick is longer than it needs to be.  It will be cut to the correct length after the wood thoroughly dries.

I sawed off all the branches as close to the trunk as possible.  These knotty places will look nice on the finished product.

I began scraping away the bark.  There are two layers of bark.

When the wood is freshly cut, the layers peel up easily.

Once started, the bark was easy to peel off.

I left bark around each end.  This prevents the wood from splitting as it dries.  I cut the stick in fall.  I leaned it against the wall in the shed and forgot about it until the following summer.  

I cut the stick to a length that I liked - 55 and 1/4 inches.  I drilled a hole with a 1/4 inch inch drill bit through the center of the stick, 11 and 3/4 inches down from the top.  I sanded with 120 and 220 grit sandpaper.  I applied a coat of wood stain and three coats of polyurethane.  Between coats of polyurethane, I sanded with 400 grit sandpaper.  Finally, I  put a 7/8 - 1 inch chair tip on the bottom end. 

Mike has a walking stick with a leather thong looped through it.  I decided to weave a black cord with a silver heart charm.  Then I personalized my walking stick with some alphabet beads.  The hard way turned out pretty, don't you think?