Project: Walking Stick

In the realm of elegant fashion accessories, a walking stick is not only graceful, but an essential self-defence weapon.

The ebony stain with the beass doorknob

I've been looking at the fantastic collection of knobs available at Hobby Lobby stores, but remained indecisive largely due to the smallish sizes. I just wasn't sure.

When push came to shove, I decided to just buy it. "It" is a black ceramic melon knob which fits my hand, although it's a little small. When I held it up to the 1" dowel, I knew... yes. Too small. However, at the shoving point, I was willing to go with it.

I also purchased a 3/4" copper end cap for the foot, and a can of gloss black enamel spray paint. It turns out that a 1" dowel is too small to fit a 1" pipe fitting, but the 3/4" fitting outside diameter is virtually the same as the 1" dowel. I took the mess home and used a rasp to reduce the foot. The pipe fitting fits perfectly.

 

The shaft of the stick - the dowel - was sanded and then took about 4 coats of enamel to make it nice and evenly shiny.

And then the brass knobs presented themselves at the Baker community sale, at $5 for a pair no less. Fairly snatched those things up, I did. They're pretty simple, with concentric rings, and what's more, they're the right size. However, the black enamel walking stick shaft seems too heavy, and rather like a broomstick. Not at all the look I was going for.

Okay, time to scuttle the project and have a redux. Back to Lowe's. (Now taking suggestions as to what to do with a 48" black enameled broomstick.)

It turns out that the 3/4" fittings perfectly match the 3/4" dowels. Go figure, right? I returned home with 2 dowels, copper fittings, and epoxy.

I have 3 knobs, and there are two of us, so two walking sticks were made. Both are measured to the height of the elbow, which is longer than the standard. That is to say, when one's hand is placed on top of the stick, the forearm is horizontal. For me, that's 40"; it's 36" for Evan.

The dowels were first sanded smooth and then wiped down with a barely damp paper towel to brush off the sanding dust. The shafts are stained using Minwax, so it's a one-step process, although I put two coats on. This is important because I don't have a workshop, but I do have a back porch. Mine is Ebony and Evan's is English Chestnut. I applied the second coat about 5 hours after the first. The second coat was still slightly tacky by dark, so the assembly happened on the second day.

Each walking stick has a 3/4" copper cap for the foot. The brass doorknob is for the ebony stick, while the English Chestnut stick uses the black ceramic knob.

The ceramic knob is an easy mount; after a pilot hole is drilled into the top, the knob - which has a threaded shaft attached - is simply screwed into the shaft. A copper reducing coupler makes the join, and looks very "finished". A little bit of epoxy inside the pilot hole ensures that the join is permanent.

For the brass knob, a copper coupler is used on top of the shaft. The coupler is fixed to the shaft with epoxy, and then the knob is set into the coupler and epoxied into place. The foot is epoxied onto the shaft. (The next time I do this, I may opt for screws instead of epoxy.)
Total time for each stick was less than a couple of hours, not including shopping and shopping again.

(By the way, the ceramic knob seems to be a not-so-good idea. I dropped it, chipped the enamel, and bent the screw mount before I could photograph it. Right before I was going to photograph it. Back to the drawing board.)