Hobbies and Schtuff
Well, I’m finally getting the start on my Hobbies and Crafts page. I have a lot of different things I create and work on here. So, where do I start?
Well, for starters, I need to get information out here for one of my favorite hobbies… walking sticks.
I love creating walking sticks! It’s a passion! It’s a time-consuming one, but it’s still a passion, nonetheless.
I got started ‘creating’ walking sticks about 5 or so years ago when a friend (in martial arts) gave me the idea. She had talked about taking a ‘Jo staff’ (a shorter version of the more well known Bo staff) and drilling a hole in the top to add a strap and use it as a walking stick to carry with her when she walked to work. It seems there was a dog in one of the yards she just didn’t trust and wanted the stick for a little extra defense, just in case.
With that in mind, I decided to do this for her as a gift for her black belt test. I took the Jo staff and added a Korean dragon, her name, in both english and Korean, three Korean Katakana symbols and a leather grip and strap. Oh, yes… and the date of her test.
It was a success! I did this as a gift for another student a year later. Since then, I’ve created a few more, of varying designs, and have come up with much better ways of doing things.
I say ‘created’ instead of carved, or whittled, because I’m not always ‘carving’ on the sticks.
Oh, I DO start out by whittling down the straight, medium-wood dowels to a tapered bottom and a rough-hewn look, and I sometimes carve out relief images, but what I do most is ‘burn’.
I use a couple of wood burning tools to ‘burn in’ the images. When that portion is complete, I go back with a light wash of acrylic paints to give it just a ‘hint’ of color. I then give the whole thing a couple coats of a durable polyurethane to protect it from the elements.
Slap on a wrapped, leather grip (yes… real leather) and a leather strap for your hand, and it’s ready to roll.
I’ve created walking sticks, and a pair of Ssahng Jeol Bong (nunchaku, or ‘nunchucks’ as many call them), and have a couple pair of Kamas I’ll eventually work on.
For more information, I’ll be adding a pricing page and a few pages with samples of my work. You’ll see a big change from the first ones I created to the more recent ones.
Pilsung!
