[I'm becoming very interested in canes as a defensive tool. Can anyone give me some things that I need to look for in a cane? Some of the canes at Cane Masters and the Cold Steel walking sticks look interesting.]
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Stay as far away from canes that look too outside the norm as possable. Meaning skull heads, mace like handles, too much metal hardware. I don't like any metal on my sticks at all, so they go right through metal detectors at the court house just fine. Stay away from gimicky appearences.
You want low profile appearence. It's surprising that even carried by a young man, a normal looking cane will hardly be noticed. A plain crook top, or even a rustic walking stick like a blackthorn won't attract near the attention of a Cold Steel cane. It's a matter of perspective. Plus, the LEO's and TSA people also get the catalogues, and they know what cold Steel products are. My son is a police officer, and they get the print outs on the newest trendy gizmos like Jaw jackkers, Comtect stingers, Benchmade weapon pens, all the plastic "letter opener" knives, and Cold steel covert weapons from the special projects catalogues. Security personel may be obnoxious, but they're not stupid. Okay, some aren't.
Be carefull of the canes with alot of wood carving/shaping like some of the canemasters products. Making any grooves or rings carved into the wood for the increase of "grip" can also make it easier to break. A ring in the wood, even shallow, can act as a stress line under impact. If you don't believe that, go out in the woods with a small pocket knife, and cut a groove around the base of a small sappling about an inch or inch and a half in diameter. Then reach up and bend the sappling. 9 times out of 10, it will break off right where the groove is cut in the wood. This is how our old scoutmaster tought us to cut limbs and small sapplings with a pocket knife for making survival shelters. His reasoning was that if we have pants on, we'll always have our pocket knife on us.
A wood cane/stick should have no cuts, grooves, figures, spirals, or anything else in the surface of the wood. Rustic sticks, like blackthorn, hornbeam, hawthorn, crabapple, don't even have the bark removed, because of the nature of the bark being thick, and being a protective layer for the wood. In Ireland, where the blackthorn has been a personal protection tool for hundreds of years, it was tradition for the stick to be cut and burried with the bark on, in a peat bog for aging. The peat turned the blackthorn a very dark color, and thats why even today, blackthorns are stained/painted black. it naturally has a dark brown color to it.
Do not get a stick that somebody has drilled a hole through the body of the stick up near the handle to put a leather thong through for a nice little loop. By doing so, they've just drilled a nice weak spot in the wood. If you want a loop, just braid a piece of thong/paracord/marline or whatever around the shaft. Don't go driiling holes in the wood right through the core of the shaft.
Rather than a Canemasters, hunt down a country feed store, and see if you can find a stock cane. A stock cane will look like a plain cane, but just a bit more "hefty". Low profile. Or there may be a medical supply store near you that will have a plain hickory, ash, or maple crook top cane. Either of those woods are good.
Carrying your cane around, don't be self concious about it. Too many young guys feel they can't get away with it and have to fake a limp. Don't do that. Just act natural. If you don't make a big deal out of it, nobody else will. If somebody is rude enough to inquire why you're carrying it, just tell them you have an old rugby/football/mountain biking/whatever injury that give you a bit of trouble now and then. After a while, even your friends will not even think about it, it will become part of you and your persona. If you really feel a bit self consious over it, start carrying it on a Monday morning, and just tell people you got a bit banged up over the weekend, and let it go at that. After a while they won't even notice it anymore.
A cane is a wonderful thing. It can go anywhere with you, past security that will stop a knife let alone a firearm. I've walked right onto airplanes with mine, right into the court house, and schools. Nobody can ever stop you, and if they try, just tell them they are about to get sued under the Americans With Disability acts. In these days of political correctness, even the most gestapo like security personel will back off from that. But the kind of cane will make a diference in that instance. A regular looking cane will be no trouble, but a cane that looks like it was designed as a weapon will be questioned. it's all about apearence and perspective.
You have to give some thought to the aftermath of the "if you have to use it' senerio. The bad thing about Canemasters, Cold steel canes, is that they are marketed as a weapon. Even if you beat the snot out of some lowlife who attacks you, and you walk out of the police station after giving your statement with the cops patting you on the back and telling you what a great job you did, your not out of the woods. All that has to happen is the family of low life gets a lawyer from the ACLU, and looks into sueing you, and he finds out you used a Cold Steel mace cane, or a Canemasters whatever, and he will try to paint you as a wanabe on the prowl. In this age of the internet, its very easy to find things out. This is why I dislike dedicated weapons like Kubotons, and martial arts stuff. Nobody ever got sued for using a AA minimag, or a standard medical supply cane. It's all about perspective, like it or not.
