Reply To: Lignum Vitae: very hard; very oily; very heavy
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Thank you for the input, guys. Hopefully, I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew. I’m definitely planning on mechanical reinforcement of the joint. I also plan to shave the square stock into rounded tapers with spoke shaves and draw knives. Lots of sharpening. I don’t have a shaving horse, and so have to figure out how to firmly fasten the shafts to the bench so they can be re-positioned frequently. No lathe, so it’s all by hand. Thinking of altering my “banger” bench to attach a cradle of some sort for the shaping. “V” shaped cradle for the first stages. The nice thing is that lining the faces of clamps with softer wood (which is any wood) probably won’t deform the shaft. I believe I’m going to lose a decent percentage of weight in the rounding process.
I measure one 1/4″ dowel formed from the same wood would fit comfortably. There will be enough left over for that and even some wedges. Paul Sellers did a blog on wedges and interestingly located one set at the edges of the M&T joint. That would take nothing from the tenon except perhaps shaving a starting gap at either end. There is sapwood with nice contrast that I can use for those. Cleaning the joint surfaces might be helped along if I can find a couple good fine-cutting plane-making floats; they would be handy for other things.
The whole project might collapse if the resulting slender shafts turn out to be too brittle. Research brought that possibility up high on the list. Shannon Rogers (WorthTheEffort) pointed out that density isn’t necessarily strength. As far as weight is concerned, there’s no way a frail person would be able to use such a cane. One piece is 42″, and adding a spike tip and decorative top would possibly make a woodland hiking staff for the hale and hearty.
Since I’m taking a month in Maine shortly, I’m putting the whole thing off for an over-the-winter project. I want tools readily available. Since it’s all in fun, and since I’ll be prototyping with other woods, I’ll hopefully have some other nice canes as a consolation prize. You see, I consider failure a learning opportunity. Thanks again and updates will follow.