Best wood for fighting stick / walking cane?

Status
Not open for further replies.
http://www.eplastics.com/Plastic/Micarta_Canvas_Phenolic_Rod
http://www.eplastics.com/Plastic/Micarta_Canvas_Phenolic_Rod

Canvas micarta comes in various colors including black, brown and natural/tan. It can have a wood grain appearance. It is commonly used on custom knife handles because of the appearance and stability/strength. Rod stock is available from the above sources. As John pointed out the prices are much higher than hickory, but the material is much tougher and heavier.

Below is a brown canvas micarta scaled Al Mar and a lighter colored Spyderco so you can see what it can look like.
al_mar_1005ubn2t.jpg
2Fr-OzqUGf3QCEOeCWkGPwyjiEp_-gqjB41UUABR9x9wf0kGcgLcHHodffL1XxEbvVbGkSW2GOy1S-3cqch7wcr_VzGGHxomDyiOtzMmbbHEXoojg2EBOF1c6VKDrcwiLZUkEzXSomC0rg5VQ7l1WfM
 
Last edited:
When cured properly Crepe Myrtle is an excellent wood to make canes, fighting sticks, and yawara with, and I've made several. It's a fairly dense hard wood that has a tight grain.

The draw back is that it's not really a commercially available wood, so to get it you have to find a source for you to go get it. Most use Crepe Myrtle in their landscaping. Because of its beautiful flowers.

For your business what is your focus? For the dojo,or for personal defense? Hickory is your best bet . But everybody uses hickory
 
Or you can try to get a piece of black walnut. Last I heard it was the hardest natural wood on the planet.
Click to expand...
You must be thinking of what some people call Brazilian Walnut/Ironwood (not the Hornbeam kind) which is actually Ipe. I use Ipe quite a lot and it is the toughest wood I've ever encountered.


mole
 
Lignum vitae is the densest of trade woods; it will easily sink in water. On the Janka Scale of Hardness, lignum vitae ranks highest, with a Janka hardness of 4500 lbf, compared with African Blackwood at 2940 lbf and Hickory at 1820 lbf.

They used to make airplane props out of it.
 
Not sure about its ability to whack stuff with but I have a walking stick made from Catawba Rhododendron that belonged to my great grandfather, I was told that he got it from the Cherokee Indians. You can tell that is has been soaked in some kind oil or wax but I am not sure. When I was a kid we used to hit rocks with it swingging it like a baseball bat and it has very few dents or cracks in it.
 
I'm surprised at all the recommendations for ash. Think about how many baseball bats you have seen shatter from hitting a small ball of thread wrapped in horse hide. Sure, it's being thrown pretty quickly, but it's still just a ball, and a cane/stick will have less cross section than a bat, even if you're talking about the skinny end of the bat. A broken bat is not a big deal in baseball, just toss it and grab another from the dugout at your next at bat. Ash is light, and usually tough enough for the task of swatting a ball, so it gets used, but for SD, you don't want something that will crack. And since the cross section is small, weight is not an issue like it is for a bat. I'd go for something tougher and denser than ash if it were me. At least for such a small cross section. Hickory and oak sound like better options to me. Another option would be Dymondwood, or something similar, where epoxy has been impregnated into the wood in an autoclave. That stuff is nice and dense, and almost indestructable. It can also be worked pretty easily and polished up real nice to make an attractive piece.

Jason
 
Extreme hardness is not as important as flexibility in a fighting stick. Very hard wood tends to be brittle and breaks when clacked together in blocking drills. Really flexible materials like rattan (actually a vine) are usually too light and lack density to carry much momentum. The best wood that I have found so far is Osage orange AKA Bois d'arc. It is dense, heavy and flexible. The problem is that long straight lengths are usually not commercially available and it is prohibitively expensive if you can find it because the longer pieces are highly coveted by bowyers. (people who make bows) It is also difficult to dry properly to avoid cracking and must be cut in the dead of winter when the sap is low and the ends must be shellacked in the field.
 
I'm just repeating but... my 3 foot piece of PVC pipe is cheap, tough as nails, and a good compromise on weight. I have no doubt it could crack a skull if it had to and I can wield it pretty darned quick.
 
The best wood that I have found so far is Osage orange AKA Bois d'arc.
Click to expand...

I imagine Osage is a pretty good wood for that.

As a geographical aside, for the longest time I wondered what in the hell an Osage orange tree was. I never found out until I got into traditional bows. No one around here calls them "Osage orange", so for other folks in the South like me, it's a horse apple tree. Seeing the words "Bois d'Arc" as an alternative name didn't help me any either, because those in the South that do call them that have pretty much mutilated the name into "bowdart", which doesn't even resemble the spelling.

Anyone that has ever cut any can attest that it is a tough-as-nails wood.

Jason
 
Canvas micarta is flexible enough, and rough enough for quick grip changes. Extremely smooth wood will stick to your hand and burn you. A former training partner of mine broke a dymondwood stick. I found ramin to be surprisingly resilient, but I don't know if you can still buy it in good conscience.
 
A former training partner of mine broke a dymondwood stick. I found ramin to be surprisingly resilient, but I don't know if you can still buy it in good conscience.
Click to expand...

Surprised to hear that about the dymondwood. I use it fairly regularly for knife scales, and it's usually pretty stout stuff. Guess maybe not when you have a piece that long. The only experience I have with ramin is cheap foreign cue sticks, and they usually warp pretty easily and are easy to break with a really loose grain. That could just be in the selection of wood used for those cheap import cue shafts though, so maybe I should rethink my opinion of it?


Jason
 
Whatever you decide to use be sure you research for possible hazards. You may need to work outside and wear a mask and goggles. One example caustic wood is Purple Heart.
 
http://www.tuatahiaxes.com/axehandles.html

Red Hickory as Strong as White Hickory

Usually only a small outer portion of a mature hickory tree contains white wood; the inner part, or heartwood is red. Many people think that this red wood is not so strong or tough as the white wood. This belief however, is discredited by actual strength tests made at the Forest Products Laboratory upon many specimens of red and white hickory. The tests show conclusively that, weight for weight, sound hickory has the same strength, toughness, and resistance to shock, regardless of whether it is red, white, or mixed red and white.

The belief that white hickory is superior to red probably arose from the observation that young, rapid growing hickory trees, which are nearly all sapwood, or white wood, generally have excellent strength properties. As the tree matures, however, this same sapwood is transformed into reddish heartwood; and a half million tests made at the Forest Products Laboratory have failed to show any change in the strength of wood of any species, due to this natural change from sapwood to heartwood.

A reliable indication of the strength of hickory is its density. That is to say, of two pieces of the same size and dryness, the heavier will be found to have the better strength properties. This fact makes it possible for large manufacturers or purchases of hickory handles or wheel spokes to inspect the pieces by weight and very rapidly and at small expense with automatic machinery.

The man who is buying only one handle will usually find a visual method of judging hickory more convenient and practical than weighing. A fairly reliable visual guide to strength is found in the proportion of summerwood appearing on the end of the piece. The summerwood is the solid looking or less porous portion of each yearly growth ring. It is quite easy to distinguish from the springwood portion of the ring, which is full of pores or small holes.

The summerwood has much greater strength than the springwood, because it contains more wood substance per unit volume. Wide bands of summerwood and relatively narrow bands of springwood, therefore, indicate a stronger piece of hickory than bands of summerwood and springwood of nearly the same width. The greater the proportion of summerwood in a tool handle or other piece of hickory, the greater will be its strength.

The number of growth rings per inch also affords some means of grading hickory. Few growth rings per inch, as shown on the end of the handle, indicate a stronger and tougher piece than many rings, provided of course, that it is straight-grained and free from defects at important points. Acceptable handles commonly show not more than 20 rings per
inch, although much good hickory will be found with as many as 40 rings per inch. More careful inspection, however, by weight, is recommended for this very slow growth material.

As a further guide in choosing a good tool handle, it is worthy of note that the best hickory shows an oily or glossy side grain surface when smoothly finished; also, when it is dropped on end on a hard surface, such as a concrete floor, it emits a clear, ringing tone, in comparison with the dull sound produced by hickory of inferior quality.

The adoption by the general public of these methods of grading hickory, in place of the worthless prejudice with respect to colour, would put an end to the wasteful practice of culling red hickory stock. When hickory was plentiful, this was a matter of seemingly little importance; but now every means should be taken to conserve the waning supply of an important wood, for which no satisfactory substitute has been found.
Click to expand...
 
Whatever you decide to use be sure you research for possible hazards. You may need to work outside and wear a mask and goggles. One example caustic wood is Purple Heart.
Click to expand...

Yeah, some folks can't even handle certain woods, much less inhale any dust from it. Cocobolo tears some folks up.

Jason
 
That's an excellent point about allergic and skin reactions to certain woods. Even American Hornbeam wood is known to be an mild skin irritant according to the US Forestry Service. I noticed my hands got a little itchy and red after during sanding and handling bare wood, though it went away in a day with regular washing.
 
Bo Dark or Osage orange is tough heavy and a preety yellow before it turns a honey color. Also Ash or last but not least hickory. All traditional bow woods.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

C
  • Locked
Canes, heavy club or fast whip?
2
Replies
28
Views
3K
Devonai
Devonai
burnse
  • Locked
Question for walking stick/cane users
Replies
6
Views
1K
DeTerminator
D
F
  • Locked
Paladin Interview With Michael D. Janich (Martial Cane Concepts)
Replies
1
Views
1K
Fred Fuller
F
C
  • Locked
Sticks I'm working on
Replies
11
Views
1K
Deltaboy1984
Deltaboy1984
A
  • Locked
Irish stick fighting
2
Replies
46
Views
4K
Deltaboy1984
Deltaboy1984
Back
Top