Sticks and Stones project (way OT)

[Guest]

In some thread this spring I had posted about a process I have for embedding semi-precious stones in living saplings. The process is simply; drill/carve a stone sized hole in the tree, insert the stone and keep it held in place with a hose clamp. I add a little rubber cork spacer so the stone doesn’t crack and the hose clamp isn’t wrapped tight where I want the bezel to form.

I put stones in a few swamp trees in NC this March, Holies and Swamp Magnolias (Sweet Bay). The growing process usually takes 3 to 5 years (and the drying process another 3 – 5 years….long term project).

This is one of those, implanted in March:





I’ve implanted 70+ trees with that technique over the years, mostly for fancy walking sticks and canes, but also for sculptures and pipe bowls and candle sticks. And gear shift knobs. This shift knob was in my ’84 truck, my ’95 truck and my new truck:



That looks and feels a lot better than this fugly clunker:



That knob is Holly, inset with picture jasper. 5 years in the ground, 3 years to dry. Again, long term project.

Except when the growing location receives nearly 30 inches more rain than the historic norm. I needed to dig a post hole in that NC location, up on the higher ground, and hit the water table before I dug deep enough.

9 months later:



I dug up three saplings that were ready, with tap root structure intact, and that is left to do is wait a few years for the wood to dry and start carving. Once I start carving away at the root structure the tree will tell me what it wants to become.







Now the long wait for a slow dry time begins.

 

[Canotrouge]

Interesting!!

 

[Robin]

I met a guy once, went by the name of Indy. He showed me a walking stick/cane you gave him with the inlaid stones. So I found some nice stones at a flea market and went back in the woods behind my house and did just what you did, drilled a hole, clamped them in using water pump hose clamps, 5 -7 years ago.

I can't find them,

 

[sweeper]

Robin I hate this abbreviation but, LOL. 'Been there, done that'

 

[Robin]

Another rock in a tree story. In 2014 I was camped on Stone Lake. A small tree that was growing out front of the site on bare rock had recently blown over. I was looking at the root ball when I noticed a round rock wrapped inside the roots. I was able to dig it out and it turned out to be perfectly egg shaped, about 5" by 4" with a 1" black dot right dead center. I had a 1 mile portage the next day and the following day a 1 and 1/4 mile port to end the trip. No way I was going to carry a rock across them. So I placed the rock on top of a boulder with the black dot looking out at the lake.

Last year I related this story to Memaquay around a evening campfire. He said there is no doubt that there was a group of Indians looking back out at me from that black dot in the center of the rock. It was good I left it with a nice view, but I should have carried it out.

 

[Muskrat]

Neat. I want one of those pipes.

 

[memaquay]

I gotta get back to Stone this spring and see if that rock is still there. Robin, you'll find those rocks if you happen to be chainsawing in the vicinity, my chainsaw seems to always find rocks!

 

[Guest]

I met a guy once, went by the name of Indy. He showed me a walking stick/cane you gave him with the inlaid stones. So I found some nice stones at a flea market and went back in the woods behind my house and did just what you did, drilled a hole, clamped them in using water pump hose clamps, 5 -7 years ago.

I can't find them,

Looking at my records Indy’s walking stick was a Tulip Poplar, implanted with Turquoise, Moss agate and Botswana agate in April of 1987 and dug out in November of 1992.

I haven’t lost any of the ones I implanted over the years, although there are three at a friend’s place in Connecticut that I implanted in the early ‘90’s and never went back to recover. All of the others, I don’t know why, I can walk straight too even years later.

Neat. I want one of those pipes.

I’ve made a lot of pipes. Here’s a few stick & stone objects from around the house; the dark-from-daily-handling object in the middle is a pipe, shape named Papoose.

 

[Muskrat]

I've always wanted to carve a pipe. Guess I better find a rock and a tree. Have to see if my mom still has that rock tumbler. Is there any wood you recommend for pipes?

 

[clemency]

Very cool. I've got several hundred stones cut and polished like that by my grandfather. I'll have to try this.

 

[Guest]

I've always wanted to carve a pipe. Guess I better find a rock and a tree. Have to see if my mom still has that rock tumbler. Is there any wood you recommend for pipes?

Finding a rock. Any rock shop will likely have semi-precious cabochons. I’ve also found a few stones in thrift stores, including giant cabs as part of gaudy cowboy belt buckles. But I’ve bought most of the semi-precious stones at rock shops out west. The proprietors of those shops, often found as a remote outpost along the blue highways back roads, just west of where Jesus lost his sandal, are usually interesting characters in their own right. Chat up that 80 year old geologist and sip his offer of bad coffee, he knows every nook and cranny of the area.

My favorite tree species for the process is American Beech (Fagus grandifoilia). They heal over well and quickly and do not split when drying. Maples are the other end of the scale, slow to heal and the wood often checks and splits while drying. The cherrys work well, as do Holly, Dogwood and Hickory, although those latter are slow growing.

In that regard any location with abundant rain or groundwater is advantageous. I did my first experimental implant in May of 1975 and looking at the growth rings across 40 years of saplings is drought revealing. That first choke cherry experiment was my backpacking stick for 30 years. It had a wonderful tap root crook at the top and I could rest the lateral bar of my external frame pack in that crook and hang suspended in the shoulder straps while gasping for air.

The stone-in-stick implantation process really is dead simple. Wander around in some remote, off-trail patch of wood. Eventually a tree will call to you. For a round cabochon just drill a simple same-diameter hole with a spade bit. For an oval cab drill the diameter circle and chisel out the top and bottom stone shape as neatly as possible. 1/4 inch deep into the sapling is usually about right.

Plug the stone in the hole. Or stones. Once I’m down on the ground drilling and chiseling I may as well implant two or three cabochons; that particular sapling may express a desire to become two or three different pieces. The gear shift knob in my truck is sapling cousin to a root carved candlestick holder inset with snowflake obsidian. Another sapling became two pipes, a neck laced wood & stone pendent and a face-knobbed shillelagh that joined one of my uncles with his grandfather’s shillelagh to one four generations later.

Strap a hose clamp around the tree and put a flexible spacer between the stone and hose clamp so the bezel can form on the sides and the stress doesn’t crack the stone (I like tiny rubber corks). Come back at least once a year to check unless you are Robin . Wait.

Once enough bezel has formed to hold the stone in place remove the hose clamp. Wait some more. It helps to record both the size of the stone (so you know how much of the stone’s edge is under bezel) and the diameter of the tree. I bring a caliper with me, a tool no shop should be without.

When you are comfortable with the amount of bezel and healed scar dig that puppy up roots and all. The root structure is often as uniquely interesting as the implanted stones. It helps to dry the dug up sapling very slowly to prevent cracking and checking. Wait some more more.

And finally, 5 to 7 years later you have a piece of wood to start carving on. The roots will speak, and tell you the shape of things to come.

I don’t know what tree species you have available in Kansas, but I expect to see you with a really cool pipe sometime in the two thousand twenties.

 

[Muskrat]

Burr oak and black walnut will most likely be my go to. Maybe locust, black or honey. Good tips on the water, I'll make sure to stick them by the creek, and flag the trees so we don't get a chainsaw stuck.

 

[Guest]

Very cool. I've got several hundred stones cut and polished like that by my grandfather. I'll have to try this.

Several hundred? heck yeah! I don’t know where you are in SC, but the high ground hardwoods in swampy areas hold a lot of growth potential. With the advent of battery powered drills the round cabochons are quick and easy to install (I still have the brace hand drill used in the 70’s and 80’s), and the oval caboshons are not much harder to install. Buy a dozen hose clamps, which can be moved along to a new sapling a year or two later, and have a walk in the woods.

What I have loved about the 40 year evolution of this has been the learning process. I can identify a dozen or so variety of semi-precious stones, know the peculiarities of 20 different species of hardwood tree, learned a lot about carving, shaping and finish sanding, got to spend hours wandering off trail with a purpose and created a variety of items that should live on for many years. My great grandfather’s shillelagh is still kicking 100+ years later.

Hmmm, I have a couple of pieces several years into drying. It may be time to get carving.

 

[clemency]

Cabochons, huh? At least now I know what to call them. And while I'm in Columbia, SC, the cabochons are at the family camp in VT. We've been thinking of incorporating them into a walkway or some tiles or something, but I'll seed some trees as well when I'm up there in June.

 

[Guest]

. Hmmm, I have a couple of pieces several years into drying. It may be time to get carving.

I have one oddball ready to shape and carve, a Beech that I neglected to check for several years, unintentionally allowing the hose clamp to corset the tree. The stone is an oval picture jasper but it is deeply over-bezeled, the only thing that kept it from closing over completely was the intact rubber cork spacer.

Removing that hose clamp overgrowth sometimes creates some interesting color, grain and shape, and the root structure has gobs of possibilities.





A bit of rasping and filing smoothes out the hose clamp corset and better reveals the bezel I have to work with. Gobs of bezel.



That is the last time I’ll see the stone for a while; I masked it so I do not inadvertently scratch it while further sanding or shaping.



Maybe it is the root structure, or something Muskrat said, but this piece is already hinting at what it wants to become. Or not, there is still a lot of bark and cambium, sclerenchyma and phloem to remove. How’s that for some three dollar words I don’t understand? I’m surprised there isn’t a schmeggey layer in there somewhere.

Time to rasp, file, carve and sand away all of the bits that don’t want to be there. To paraphrase a famous chisel man “Every piece of wood has a statue inside it, and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. Also “Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop”.



Easy, but slow is good, as the will of the wood begins to take shape. The unfinished stub is my clamp and vice mount area; once I’m finished shaping and sanding the stone bezel and roots I’ll tackle that less complicated end.



Lot of complex and convex curves, bumps and knobs in what remains. Hand sanding is gonna be a lengthy task.



I see an antler there. Which is appropriate; I only took the roots and bottom 12” of that sapling, above that the trunk had been mauled repeatedly as a deer scrape. Whitetails seem to like beech saplings. Or hose clamps.

 

[Guest]

Back to scraping away unwanted cellulose.

With the wood rough rasped to shape and filed as wabi-sabi smooth as possible I was ready to start sanding. Most of the stick & stone stuff becomes some object held in hand. Wabi-sabi isn’t good enough there, I want them to have a silky smooth tactile pleasure and after 100 or so pieces I have an established sanding protocol.

A multi-day sanding protocol. Given some insist in achieving a rightly patient frame of mind I enjoy slowly hand-sanding, working my way through multiple grades of sandpaper. Using each twice.

100 grit, as smooth as I can get the wood, then put it under a bright light, pencil mark every scratch and blemish, and sand these areas again with 100. Then repeat sand/pencil check/re-sand with 220, 320, 400. The smoother it gets with each grade the easier the next finer sandpaper will go.

The odd antler bumps and convex curves do mean that I’m often sanding with my index finger using a tiny piece of sandpaper, which makes for a sanding job best spread over several days, lest I end up Helter Skelter bellowing “I’ve got blisters on me fingers!”






Sanding inside the bezel is even finer fingertippy. Sand until my fingertips can’t take it anymore and take a break for refreshments. That piece is beginning to feel like glass. And the tip of my index finger feesl like heck.

I see an antler. And a pipe. An ornamental peace pipe, named Antler.



Time to pipe it, and calculate depths and distances for a stem and a bowl drill. A piece of bent wire will line up the angle through the stem from top to bottom and from side to side, and give me a depth gauge for the stem and bowl drills. That is an oddly curved and convoluted stem and it’s a relief to get it successfully done without drilling ooops-crap-went-through-the-side.



Once my fingertips recover I can finish sanding the business end and start thinking about the shape of things to come at the base of the antler.

 

[Rippy]

Mike, you crusty old salt, I'm glad you found a good use for your carbuncles. They are colorful carbuncles, but I think you could have avoided the pain of having them removed by using better hygiene.

 

[Guest]

Mike, you crusty old salt, I'm glad you found a good use for your carbuncles. They are colorful carbuncles, but I think you could have avoided the pain of having them removed by using better hygiene.

A mirror finish on my new knife might be helpful in carving carbuncles from my nether regions. Is it too late to change my vote?

I sometimes bring a selection of well-dried pieces on long roadtrips. It gives me an excuse to sit somewhere in solitude and carve, sand and contemplate. This batch was largely the product of a spring spent in the Chiricahuas with a Workmate and tools.

 

[Guest]

I've always wanted to carve a pipe.

Pipes are fun to carve, and don’t need to be as elaborate as the Antler Peace Pipe. Looking at the logbook I’ve made 24 pipes. The more intricate of them - of their own free will - became identifiable shapes. With names; Fertility Goddess, Bison, Whale, Das Shark, Manatee, three different Papooses, The snake in The Little Prince (although this one had swallowed a mouse, not an elephant).

https://www.google.com/search?q=the...ygaVHU2PM:&usg=__SrFUrytuVZQeL-oONh8yWgEpuIg=

Others unnamed, but I know still to be in treasured use. A previous Peace Pipe, a massive and elaborately carved thing, inset with jade and picture jasper. Here’s a pipe for you. It’s two feet long and weighs nearly a pound, but it can also be used for counting coup

One don’t try this at home pipe carving hint of recently reinforced learning. When you drill out the stem and bowl do not – I repeat not – blow out the dust by exhaling forcefully through the stem. Even if wearing glasses.

I was doing the final shaping of the bowl interior I decided to blow out the debris with a sharp Pfff. An amazing amount of dust shot out of the bowl. Yes I was wearing glasses. Yes it was aimed perfectly for the gap between the lense and my right eyeball.

 

[Guest]

Sanded down to 320, pencil checked and spot sanded through the various grits, it was time to start shaping the butt end of that antler. It would be a lot easier to simply round off that end, but if it wants to be an antler an antler it shall be.

I don’t have enough narrowing trunk to flare out as a proper coronet or burr, but I can shape something close. More wood rasp, file and concave curve sanding. And some little crown notches with a rat tail file.




Those wee notches were easiest sanded using the rat tail file to hold the paper in a tight curve.



Antler is nearly finished. It needs a few coats of oil rubbed in by hand. I’d like a little color in that pale piece of Peace, so I used a food grade walnut oil for multiple coats of oil. I use that oil on wood salad bowls and it imparts a faint nutty flavor. It should do the same for Longbottom Leaf, and darken the wood agreeably.







That’ll do. Over time, use and handling it will continue to darken with age and I am pleased with the result. For a piece that was neglected and ingrown it quickly expressed a desire to become something antler-like and the sanding job is one of my best yet, with nary a scratch or blemish. The tactile feel is hard to describe; it is smoother than silk and a pleasure to hold

I keep finding pieces around the house I’d forgotten about. Key holder with moss agate and tiger’s eye.