Raising Cane

I met up with an old friend recently and he was walking with a cane due to some knee issues.  The cane was a drug store cane - you know, the cheap aluminum cane with curved hook-style handle.  I couldn't let that stand.

A few years ago I made three canes based on a Paul Sellers plan.  They came out great and I gave them all away, so I thought I'd make another.

Started with two pieces of cherry

The handle and shaft blanks were about 7/8" thick and the shaft was plenty long to make a cane for Jay, who is 5'10" or 5'11" tall.  I started by squaring up the two pieces and marking out the shape of the handle on the smaller piece.

Handle marked out

I first mortised the handle to accept the shaft's tenon, then got to shaping the handle.

Testing the fit of the tenon in the mortise

I rounded over all edges of the handle and made sure it was comfortable before gluing it up.  I used two walnut wedges to tighten the tenon in the mortise.

The final shape of the handle and the handle/shaft junction

There's a neat trick that Sellers showed to "resolve" the junction between the shaft and the handle.  If you enlarge the above picture, you'll see how it works.  That little detail makes a big difference in the overall appearance.

The above picture was taken after applying one of two coats of polyurethane.  I forgot to get a picture during the building process, but I added a decorative spiral to the shaft.  That was done by laying out the pattern with a string wrapped around the shaft, marking a line next to the string, then removing material between the lines with rasps, files, scrapers and sandpaper.

Looking down the shaft to see the spiral

I was so anxious to get the cane to Jay that I didn't get an overall picture of it.  But he really appreciated it.  I just hope he doesn't have to use it for long.