Several years ago while hiking, I picked up a branch to use as a walking stick. That was not an unusual thing for me to do. What was unusual was that I kept this particular stick. I really liked it and thought I would one day clean it up and make it into an actual walking stick. My oldest daughter, Jalen, has become a fairly avid hiker in the intervening years. A few months before Christmas 2023, I decided to follow through on that idea and give it to her as a gift.
The stick still had bark in some places so the first step was to strip the entire thing of any remaining bark. Next, I cleaned it and sanded it smooth without removing any of the natural curves and character.
Three significant knot holes needed to be dealt with. I decided to fill these with epoxy. The difficulty was getting the stick to stay in the proper orientation so that the epoxy could settle into the hole and cure.
Once the three holes were filled and the epoxy had fully cured, I did some finish sanding. When I was satisfied with the look of the stick, I began applying coats of wipe-on polyurethane. I am now regretting not using spar urethane but if the finish doesn’t hold up, I can always resand the stick and apply a different finish. Sanding between coats, I applied the poly until I was happy with the finish.
There were two final steps remaining. The first was to wrap three areas with black paracord to create hand holds. The second was to put a rubber leg tip on the bottom of the stick. The diameter of the bottom was almost exactly 3/4 inch which made it easy to install the tips.
In the end, I was very pleased with how it turned out. Jalen was completely surprised and loved it.