I'm fond of using Linseed oil. Boiled oil takes about 24 hours to set, and the paint based from it takes nearly a week to dry; but the final result is worth the wait! Also, I just really love the smell. :)
I love your blackthorn sticks. Especially the very straight ones with the visible thorn bumps on them, they are just beautiful. And to own a natural, hard stick like that, that’s been dried for a full 3 years, before being worked and finished to perfection, it’s a sight to behold. A stick and a protection to you. Your work will last for centuries. Family heirlooms, I wonder, do you wish you’d put a mark on every stick? A mark that you would recognise? It would be a great thing for a customer to be able to show the macaffrey burn stamp on their stick? I know that ‘seems’ corporate etc, and could be copied, but I doubt anyone would copy it. But it would show you as the maker. A class maker of sticks and shillelagh’s. ? I think you should have a way of showing it’s YOUR creation. Rather than other makers. ?👍
I heard/read that, as you said, one way to dry season a stick was to shove it up the old large chimney. Plus, to preserve it, when drying, slather butter or fat all over it. So the water is leaving it, the oils are replacing the water, and the fine black dust of the soot is mingling with the oils while its penetrating. So the combination of drying in the soot, plus being slathered in butter, the oils soaking in - the combination of soot and butter/oil is going to make it black. Also when the wood is completely dry, and full of oil/soot - it will slow 'bake' up the chimney, which also darkens it! I don't have an old chimney, so when mine are 'shed/house' dry, I soak them in vegetable oil for a few months, then slather them in butter about twice a year - to keep them. Lovely work btw!
A coating of creosote (from hiding in the chimney from the law) would really protect the bata from moisture as creosote posts have been used for posts (telephone poles, power (hydro) poles, & railroad ties especially for the section in contact with the earth or buried as it prevents rot really well. I read an old article that the writer cited a maker using blood from fowl that he rubbed in until it gave a black mahogany finish.
Should also make a short video about caring for/maintaining one's cane. Also will the handle of a knob stick develop a patina over time? If so, can we accelerate the process.
So it's all about the look? I always figured it were methods for making the stick tougher for use in fighting and defense. Seems a lot of work with the butter and the chimneys and the dungheaps and the painiting with magpie-blood and all the rest of it. Cheers from Sweden!
Actually it was the way of life at the time. Farmers has dung heaps just throw a few sticks to season there not much effort on they or putting it up a chimney. Birds blood was just used as a decorative wood stain.
@@FrancisMcCaffrey5 That's true, of course. Guess my perspective is a bit skewed by a sequence I read in an old novel. A character is out for vengeance, and crafts a stick especially for that purpose. The bird's blood thing made it seem extra dramatic. Bit like Ahab with his harpoon.
I live in Florida and it rains everyday in summer, i don't think i own an umbrella. We know the rain will clear out in 30 mins. I am just starting to get into carving and now i need to add a walking stick to my list of things to attempt. I already am planning a churchwarden pipe and gnome or other figurine and now this... hmm now to go find a good stick... i have lots of magnolia trees and oak trees around me..
I never considered there'd be different styles of sticks 🤔 i always just assumed it depended on what was available, I suppose it's like swords in a way, different makers have different trademarks and styles. Was there a common style in the Mayo area?
@@FrancisMcCaffrey5 this is our year, i mean it this time! Haha if not Mayo then im happy if Kerry or Tyrone wins the Sam, just as long as we keep the Dubs out this year! #Mayo4Sam
Any paint in particular? Is there any chance they’d use the old fire black paste? I remember my Nan using it to polish up the stove in the kitchen, back in the ‘70s. It’s called iron paste nowadays, Liberian makes it.
Zebo grate paste it was called, it’s been discontinued now. Called my mother to ask. Mostly nowadays it’s called Black Grate Polish for wood burners. Love your page, great work keeping the old ways alive. I’m off out shortly to cut some blackthorn. Keep up the great work. 👍
@@Murch2013 haha! Just fine sand your stick down really smooth, get some sanding sealer, give it two coats of that. Then use any gloss black paint- leave the top natural to show the grain, when the paint is dry, you can give it a coat of nice glossy varnish to protect it from the weather. If you want it really glossy, lightly sand down after varnishing- don’t worry about scratching the varnish, it’ll look bad but it’s not! After the light sanding of the varnish, varnish it again. All those millions of scratches will disappear like magic. And you’ll be left with a shine you can shave in.
