~ Some thoughts about Living History, especially 18th Century Middleground, pets, fiber arts especially spinning and knitting, and other activities I enjoy.
I’ve continued to make more hair sticks, various woods, various lengths and sizes. At some point I may well try actually making some carvings on them, but for now I’m making very simple, rustic, sticks. Simply removing bark, smoothing and doing some shaping, but nothing really fancy. But it has been so much fun, and I’m loving having a widening selection of sticks that I have made. Since my hair is long, too long to just leave loose, I wear it up every day, so having lots of hair sticks, forks and other hair tools is both practical, necessary and fun.
Some of the sticks I’ve made are really too long and/or thick for what I need for my hair, but I have friends and family with different hair who may be interested in some of the ones that aren’t as good for me. I’m really excited about sharing the results of my playing with knives and wood!
So far I have sticks shaped from cedar, cherry, maple and ash. There is other wood out there, but those are what I’ve used so far.
After I’m done shaping the sticks I sand them with 3 different grit sandpaper, as I mentioned in a previous post. After sanding I rub them with food grade mineral oil. Sometimes I rub some beeswax on them, and rub that in as well, to seal the wood a bit.
When I get out the mineral oil I will oil not only the sticks, but also whatever wooden kitchen tools are handy, including knife handles. Hard to do that too often!
I’ve been making more hair sticks as well as thinking about trying to make hair forks/pins at some point as well. Not sure I can do the forks with just the jack knife. Anyway, today my husband and I took a walk in the woods to see what we could find.
The hardwoods in our little wood lot have grown tall and shade out the cedars which are one of the first trees that tend to come up around here. So, lots of dead cedar trees about 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) tall. The larger ones are about 3.5 inches (9 cm) across. We found one that has a lovely pink red interior and brought 2 sections about 5.5 inches (14 cm) long. I also brought up a dead maple branch which he cut into several similar lengths.
I got out a hatchet and split pieces off one of the 2 sections of cedar, then split some of the maple sections.
So I selected a few of the thinner pieces and took them outside to whittle. I had a little company and, um, help…
The cedar stick (top in the previous photo) that was already shaped needed to be sanded, If I’m going to do the sanding I might as well do several at a time.
The red cedar stick has a knot/branch at the thicker end. I haven’t decided if I’ll carve it off, shape it further or what, so I didn’t worry to much about sanding that smooth. The shortest stick is wide, but thin in the cross section. It is about as short as will work in my hair with a nautilus bun.
The sticks that have been sanded were first sanded with 150 grit, then 220, then 320. There is still some texture, the grain of the wood, so the sticks stay in my hair very securely. I’ve had some beautiful sticks I’ve purchased that are so smooth that they want to slip out of my hair, so having a bit of that natural wood grain texture seems to help.
I have found that I like some curve to my sticks, which is why many of the ones I’ve whittled have some curve to them. I haven’t done enough experimenting to find if there is an ideal amount of curvature. And I’m not positive how that might affect strength. So far I’ve been just doing some shaping on an already curved stick.
These new sticks haven’t been oiled yet. It will be fun to see how the color changes and what grain comes up when they get oiled. I have been using mineral oil, food grade, to oil my hand shaped sticks. I might rub them with a bit of bees wax as well.
I haven’t done much in the way of working with wood. Sure, I’ve hammered nails to hold stuff together or whatever, and I’ve used a knife to do various things. But not much in the way of whittling. I’ve used a draw knife and I’ve made a spoon. Simple things.
A number of the hair tools I have are made from wood. Hair sticks and forks mostly, although I do have a wooden comb. I use various hair sticks or forks daily, to keep my hair up out of the way. And while I adore some of my beautiful wooden sticks and forks, some were quite expensive. I worry about breaking or losing them.
So it occurred to me that I should be able to make a few simple, rustic type sticks. We heat our home in the winter primarily with firewood, which is cut from the back of our property. This year I decided that I would keep some of the sticks from hard woods and try my hand at making some hair sticks. I used seasoned sticks from dead branches/trees, as I didn’t want to use green wood. So we selected some decent sized sticks from maple and cherry, cut to a few different lengths, which I then split.
At first I used the simple pocket knives that I had around, but they really aren’t sharp enough to do the more delicate work, and using my thumb to control the movement and pressure was enough to make my thumbs hurt. So I decided that I should get a knife for the job. I did some research and ended up spending more than I had expected, but I really like this Flexcut Tri-Jack Pro carving knife. It is much easier and faster to use this knife and I’m not bruising my thumbs using it.
I am still in the research part of my whittling adventure, figuring out how best to carve out the sticks, and what shapes I like best. Some of the sticks have some natural curve, and I find that to be quite nice as it helps the stick curve along the head. I’m also doing some testing to decide if I prefer round sticks, or if a flatter one stays in place better.
The photos show 4 split sticks of different lengths, and 2 in progress proto-hair sticks, and 3 completed hair sticks. The longer completed stick, second from the ruler, is maple. The rest are cherry.
I start the whittling by removing the bark and begin the rough shaping. I then just keep working the shape based on the existing wood shape, smoothing them. After I like the shape I use some sandpaper to do additional smoothing. Since these will be used in my hair it is critical that they be smooth, but have enough texture to not simply slip out.
The completed sticks have been wiped with food grade mineral oil, which I use on my wooden kitchen knife handles and so on. I also rubbed a bit of beeswax on them, then buffed it off to smooth them. I know some people will stain and use some sort of lacquer on them, but I don’t want to use anything stinky. Besides, rustic will work well for what I need at this time. I may research other options in the future, who knows.
It’s been fun making these sticks, and interesting enough that I may well try to make a hair fork at some time. That might need a different tool. Not sure if I can do that with a simple knife very well. More to learn!