Yucca . . .help!

[Nancy-ID]

This morning I went on a Yucca "stalk" harvest. Brought in 4 nice ones. However . . .I have no clue (again) on how I should proceed to make a walking stick from them. Three of the stalks are green, one is dry. The dry one is very light and fiberous. My main question being; how do I treat/preserve/plain old keep in the condition it should be for a stick? Are the sticks made of green or dried stalks? What is the cleaning, you know, like de-barking proceedure. Can they be carved at all or only finished and have an add-on carving for the handle? as usual.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

dry them, there is no treatment, when dry they are fine other than a spray coating of either Deft or polyurathane..as for cleaning them, turn the stalk so it is upside down, take a sharp knife and slice right next to the main stalk and the leaves will easily cut off. Cut you stalk to whatever length you want and then sand, and sand and sand LOL.....I made a sander out of a swamp cooler 2 speed motor and one of the sanding drums that are about 8-10 inches long and have foam inside.....works great and takes the majority of the work out of sanding sticks! I have not tried carving since they are a lot like bamboo .....I have woodburned designs in them however. Oops I am wrong, I did carve a couple of "bead rings" around one that I mounted a knob handle on.

[Nancy-ID]

Thank you, Mr. Sliver I will work with the dried one and let the others dry. I could have picked up lots of dry ones but somehow the green ones looked better Thanks a bunch.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

make sure you keep them straight, they will take on a curve if bent while drying

[don]

We don't have any yucca here but I'm curious,to dry them straight do you lay them flat like regular wood or hang them vertically? Do they dry quickly? Don

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

I nailed some 2x4's across the ceiling joists in the shop and covered them with some old carpet, all my sticks lay up there, it is warm and enough 2x4's to keep them straight. I watch the yucca here and the best sticks are after they have been standing a year....can't tell you exactly how long it takes to dry...but standing, when the flowers are all dried up, seems the stalk is as well. I have swapped a number of yucca sticks for other sticks in the past....if someone is really interested let me know...I think I still have a couple of decent ones left. (but lets do it after Christmas ok LOL)

[jamesfa]

Nancy-ca hi ho has pretty well covered what you do with Yucca sticks,i have picked them when there dry and tie them to a 2x4 to keep straight.and when i use the i pretty much just sand7sand until there clean.then imake a topper for them.
I like the yucca stiks for hiking because they are light and relatvely strong, there are a couple of pictures in my picturetrail album if you want to have a look.

Frank

[don]

Thanks Dave and Frank I have seen yucca but like I said I had no idea how it was treated to make it a stick. Don

[Nancy-ID]

Frank, what a cool idea of tieing them to a 2x4. I never would have thought of that. today I sandwiched them between some boards and put rocks on top, but I can see the 2x4 trick working much better I think. I went to your album, beautiful stuff! I especially like the cat walking stick. I would like to do a Pink Panther topper/handle for my stick. A freind of mine is a PP nut (cartoon) and I would like to give the stick to him for Christmas. Any ideas out there on the Pink Panther part? I would love to do it in either acacia or manzanita.

[jamesfa]

Nancy-Ca we don't have a lot of yucca in Ontario,so i pick themup in our travels and the 2x4 with sticks is usually thrown in the back of the truck.

if you think you can adapt or modify the cat topper to a pink panther i will dig it up and e-mail it to you

Frank