[takeaction]

I am way over my head on this one, but the wife keeps pressuring me to carve this walking stick for her... I keep begging her to wait, because this piece of wood is absolutely beautiful! See for yourself! We found this while walking on our property. I have no idea what type of wood it is, but it's gorgeous and 5'7" tall...

http://www.smithfarming.com/staff1.jpg
http://www.smithfarming.com/staff2.jpg

They are both the same stick, and I have no idea what kind of wood it is. It has been sitting in the house for a year and is completely dry... With me being a newbie, there is no way I can do this piece of wood justice... Please help me convince her to wait! LOL

As a side note, we found this one yesterday. My son cut a gum down and fed it to our goats (natural bark strippers that LOVE gum)...

http://www.smithfarming.com/gumstaff.jpg

I wouldn't mind it if I messed that one up because it's gum... but I'm still not ready to take these on...

[Sharon of the Dell]

If your wife thinks you can carve it, then go for it! Mama knows best!...sharon

[takeaction]

usually I would agree, but this thing is absolutely beautiful as it is... The twist in the picture goes all the way to the bottom. It has a natural gap in it at her hand level. I stripped the bark off and OMG it's even more pretty... She wants a native american, a greenman, and a wizard on it... but where would I put them? the twists are all the way down to the last 1 foot of the stick...

My practice sticks should be here in 3-4 days, so I can get that out of the way... Maybe I won't mess it up too badly?

But again... Where should I put them without harming the natural twist of the stick? I've seen twisted sticks like this sell at pow wows WITHOUT carving on them for over $150! and they sell!

Not saying I'm going to sell it, cause it's hers and she would, well... do really bad things to me if I tried... LOL!

[Jim-Iowa]

The natural twists in that stick stand pretty well on it's own merit.
Since the bark is pretty well stripped on one side anyway.
I think I would finish stripping it, then see what ideas come.
Since the twists show so much character, it would be a delima since a strong carving might detract from it. and at the same time a simpler carving would not detract from it. Since it's your wifes anyway maybe her favorite mountain wildflowers would be apropriate? Let her make the decision!

[chuckt]

Heh heh - you know it's funny that you mention wanting to wait to carve this. I have a Black Walnut stick (nothing as nice as yours - no twists) that I've been saving for about 4 years now until I get good enough and confident to carve a REALLY good woodspirit in. So I can totally relate.

I agree with Jim. Strip the bark and see if something jumps out at you. I also agree that the twists themselves are so nice that it wouldn't need much to make it special. But perhaps the placement of some faces will work really well if they can be integrated well with the twists. i.e. I would [Edit - meant to say WOULDN'T] reshape the stick too much to do the face, but rather if necessary distort the face to fit the stick if you see what I mean.

I could be wrong about this, but as a relative newbie myself, I find that most of the faces you do as a beginner start with a corner on a basswood 1x1 type of stick and are pretty symetrical. For this stick you'll probably need to feel confident enough to work with the twist which may require a fair amount of asymetry.
You may also want to try sketching them out first on both paper then stick to help visualize the carving.

Then again, maybe some of the others are right and you should just GO FOR IT! I tend to be overly analytical about things like this. ;-)

What ever you decide to do - I am sure it'll be excellent! Best of luck with it and thanks for sharing the photos of the sticks. They're both pretty cool!

ChuckT

[Ron T]

That is a beautiful stick. That said, I'm not surprised you feel hesitant about carving it.

I'm a stick carver and a lot of mine are on twisty sticks. I feel that most new carvers have difficulty deciding on what to carve. That's because we haven't done it yet, don't have the experience. You'll find in the posts a lot of "First carving of" done by experienced carvers. They feel a little hesitant about trying to carve a new subject, too. When we do decide, most want to try a "practice" piece of wood or stick. That's understandable, especially since those twisties don't come along everyday.

My suggestion is if you don't want to carve the stick right away, carve a stick topper and use a threaded cane screw to attach it to the top of the stick. If the stick topper doesn't turn out like you want it to, just carve another. You can peel the bark and finish the stick now and carve it later when you feel more confident.

I just "Finally finished a stick" (thread) and it took me over a year because I didn't know where to go with the design. In this case, I started w/ an Indian and used the twist for a snake (typical) and burned a bear face at a knee down lower on the stick.

Good luck with it. You can post or PM me if you have questions.

[iwoodcarve]

Can't rush a carver. My Dad always mentally worked through any repair of building project in his head for as long as it took, then he rarely made mistakes. Good lesson for me. You will know when you are ready, good luck!

[Jim-Iowa]

That's good advice Greg!
But I have learned that when the solution comes to you in your sleep.
Waking the wife up to tell her how your going to do it is not often met with enthusiastic support.

[Robert Cahill]

Originally Posted by Jim-Iowa

That's good advice Greg!
But I have learned that when the solution comes to you in your sleep.
Waking the wife up to tell her how your going to do it is not often met with enthusiastic support.

Good point but it may stop her from pressuring you.

[mikeGinSC]

Unless your wife's like mine, hates snakes, it would be a natural for a snake stick. Good luck.

Mike G. in SC