Louie Powell
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I've made several myself, and I watched Richard Findley make one in a demonstration at Totally Turning a few years ago.
Canes look best if the shaft tapers slightly. I settled on a design that is 1 1/8" at the top, and tapers to 7/8" at the bottom. The length of the shaft depends on the height of the user; the usual 'rule of thumb' is that the length of a cane should be equal the the distance from the users wrist to the floor when the arm is allowed to fall loosely to the side. It's ok to be a bit longer than ideal, but its uncomfortable to use a cane that is too short.
My lathe has an 18" bed, so allowing for fixings, the longest shaft section I can turn is 12-13". So I made mine in sections that I joined together. Most of the joints are mortise/tenon - I made 5/8x3" oak dowels which resulted in fairly long and quite strong glue joints. While it is possible to simply glue sections together, I found that it looked better to celebrate the joints by inserting very short sections of contrasting wood - I turned a fillet on one of the shaft sections at each joint, and then glued a thin slice of contrasting timber onto the fillet before finish turning that section of the shaft to its final diameter.
Getting the sections to have matching diameters at the joints requires careful measurement. However, I found that I could dry-fit and mount adjacent sections in pairs between centers on my lathe to finish sand the joints and eliminate the mismatch.
This design resulted in four shaft sections to achieve the desired final length. In a few instances, I made the middle joint a screw joint so that the cane could be collapsed for travel. I glued a threaded insert in the lower shaft, and a length of all-thread in the upper shaft.
I cheaped out and used black rubber feet (from Ace Hardware) on my lathes. It is possible to purchase metal feet, and I suppose that one could also adapt plumbing fittings.
Some of my canes had T-shaped handles, and some had bulb-shaped handles. Richard Findley observed that T-shaped handles are mainly used by those who use canes as walking aids, while bulb-shaped handles (like oversized wine stoppers) are used by those to view canes as fashion statements. My T-handles are also turnings, but done on two axes so that the cross section is more oval than round. For strength, I turned the end of the shaft down from its nominal 1 1/8" top diameter to around 7/8", and then glued it into a 7/8" hole in the handle. For strength, I drilled a hole longitudinally through the handle (and therefore through the top of the shaft), and inserted a fiberglass rod that pinned the handle to the shaft. A wooden plug concealed the hole in the handle. It's also possible to purchase handles in a variety of shapes.
As Ed noted, Treeline.com specializes in components for canes - handles, tips, threaded couplers, etc. Lee Valley also has some components in their catalog.
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