Walking cane repair

**YossiD** · 17th February 2023, 07:32 PM

A friend, who collects canes and walking sticks, had to a cut a newly acquired walking stick in order to get it into his luggage. Now he's asking me how best to join the two pieces back back together - end to end.

I've not yet seen the stick, but I'm guessing it's irregular in cross section, as he prefers those with interesting shapes.

My first thought is to drill oversize holes in the ends to be joined, fill them with epoxy, and then use a smaller diameter dowel, using the slop to adjust.

My second thought is to join from the outside by cutting some grooves around the circumference and filling them with splines of some sort, then carving or sanding them down to more-or-less match the contour.

I don't believe he has a drill press, and neither do I, though I doubt it would be much help here.

I don't consider either of these to be particularly elegant solutions.

Any better ideas?

Thanks.

**China** · 18th February 2023, 02:02 AM

Walking Stick Connector | Woodturners Project Parts | Tasmania

**burraboy** · 20th February 2023, 03:11 AM

Originally Posted by China

Walking Stick Connector | Woodturners Project Parts | Tasmania

I've used these in the past and was less than impressed with them, not long enough.
These are better;

screwjt.jpg

From the Stick Man in the UK

**GraemeCook** · 21st February 2023, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by YossiD

... I don't consider either of these to be particularly elegant solutions.

Any better ideas? ...

I think that your friend has breached Rule #1 - "Do not cut walking sticks in half!"

Any repair will have two elements - aesthetics and engineering.

Engineering. Gluing end grain will not work - it will break easily - so it will beed reinforcing. Probably the simplest is to epoxy a threaded steel rod up the centre. This will require extremely accurate drilling up the centre of each piece. An error of 0.2 mm will be obvious.

Aesthetics. The joint will almost certainly be very obvious. "If you cannot hide a problem, then make it a feature". Without seeing the stick, I can offer no other suggestions.

**auscab** · 21st February 2023, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Any repair will have two elements - aesthetics and engineering.

I think the over sized hole each side and threaded Rod epoxy’d in place method you pointed out in another thread would work Graeme . Don’t you ?

**GraemeCook** · 21st February 2023, 02:36 PM

Originally Posted by auscab

I think the over sized hole each side and threaded Rod epoxy’d in place method you pointed out in another thread would work Graeme . Don’t you ?

Yes, definitely, Rob. The difficulty is very accurate alignment. It is also what Yossi suggested, but replacing dowel with threaded rod - doubt if dowel would be strong enough. Also, it is a "collector's walking stick", so presumably the surface is already finished and possibly carved or decorated - any fairing will destroy that.

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