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Earlier this afternoon, Christopher Schwarz (contributing editor to Popular Woodworking Magazine and editor at Lost Art Press), Andy Brownell (Brownell Furniture) and I were on WVXU’s weekly talk show “Cincinnati Edition” discussing the art and craft of woodworking with host Mark Heyne and callers.
Among the things Mark asked was to tell listeners about our first woodworking projects. Mine was a stick. As you can see above, I still have it. (I no longer have the first pieces of wood I secured together…the L-bracket bookshelves about which I’ve written before.)
I don’t recall my exact age when I “made” that walking stick by removing the bark with a pocketknife from all but the twisty ridges, but I know it was at Fort Scott Camps. I think I was 11 or 12.
It makes a decent shillelagh, if nothing else.
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Entertaining radio segment. Poison-ivy doesn’t twine – it clings to trees with aerial rootlets – so your twisty stick was most likely deformed by honeysuckle or possibly wisteria, which are twining vines.
Way cool! I have one of those too. I found mine in a trendy shop in the Smokies last year. I paid $25 bucks for it. And yes, it would indeed make a decent shillelagh. Also has a handmade lanyard for a wrist strap.
KCWG just passed 600 members. Trending MUCH younger with lots of under 40s now.