Mike

Ok Ed, now for a serious suggestion about your mother in law's cane. I had this idea come to me and I think it would be very popular. Create an old fashioned Sunbeam mixer on the top of the cane. The handle would be black and squared off, the mixer body would be white and made from a block of balsa so it wouldn't effect the balance or weight of the cane. A simple 1" hole through the block and some epoxy to hold it in place. Now for the really trick part. These old Sunbeam mixers had a round dial on the end to adjust the speed. It would be a simple thing to make this a removeable plug / end cap and have hidden storage inside the mixer body. What do you think?

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Mike
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Visteonguy

Sandy, when I cut out my blanks,, I was not real careful about following the line, so in some areas, the blank had more wood to remove then maybe ideal, I attached the pattern to the blank with double stick tape and in the areas that were real heavy, I just did not try and push the pattern up against the bearing,, I just kind of ran those areas past the cutter a few times and took off some of the wood, kind of freehand, till there was still just a little to go,, and once I had the blank down so there was just a little bit of wood to remove, all around the blank,, then I started at one end and then,, Pushed the pattern up tight to the bearing, and ran it around the whole blank, so it was finally cut down to its finished size. It worked ok for me. But like I said. be extra careful when you are running the cutter around INSIDE the handle, that is about the only place I had problems, and that happend only when I got complacent and let my attention wander and let my grip on the blank get a little too light. If you were cutting on the outside of your pattern, it would just toss the wood away and that would be that, but since you are surrounding the bit with wood, It cannot just toss it away, It tosses it to the other side and then gets tossed again and it happens so fast,, its just MORE excitement then you need. I had to stop and count my fingers a couple of times and make sure I still had all of em after that happened. Only happend once, and it sure zeroed in my attention from then on.
ALso I used 1/2 inch shank bits instead of the 1/4 inch ones,, they are a lot stronger, they have a better chance of surviving a mistake. I did fling my first 1/4 flush trim bit across the garage some place,( Still haven't found it ) because I was pushing it too hard and it failed and sheared off.
And I think you said you had to make over your pattern because it was not long enough, I just left extra wood, like maybe 4-6 inches of wood extend past the end of my pattern and drilled a hole in the end of that extra wood so I could slip it over a nail to aid in drying,and to hang onto in the finishing process. I did not use the pattern to make that extra lenght, so you should be fine with your pattern. I did make mine a couple of inches longer then the finished size anyway,, so it gave me more options in cutting to the finished lenght depending on who was getting the cane.

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Terry

It seems like every where I go,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, there I am...

reible

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reible

Hi,

I'm sure most of you remember that the feed direction for the hole in the handle is different then the feed direction for the rest of the project..... but in case some of you are new to routing or have forgotten........ now you know.

Ed

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Mike

Ed, strength might become an issue if you went with a 2 piece design that had the handle seperate from the rest of the cane. The cane with a simple "L" shape on the end is easy enough, and it is strong enough. After shaping the balsa block into the mixer body shape you would pass a 1" hole through it and simply slide it to the position below the handle and glue in place. Since the portion of the Mixer body which protrudes away from the cane shaft is balsa and hollowed out there is no weight imbalance to speak of.

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Mike
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reible

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SandyT

Terry,
Thanks for all the caution, I think you can never be careful enough. I have seen with my own eyes a man who lost his fingers on a saw after 20 years experience because he wasn't paying attention or became too comfortable with his machinery.
Maybe, if it wasn't too much trouble, you could tell me what length you cut the canes (including the extra inches for finishing), so I have something to work with. My pine cane is extra long and I know I will be cutting off the part that is crooked (because I tried to double-sided-tape-stick a little piece to the end of my original pattern and it was obviously not straight). I should have just left the long part unfinished like you said you do. That sounds like the more intelligent thing to do, but I always seem to find out everything the hard way. (Except for being extra cautious routing the middle of the handle, in which I will learn from your bad experience!)

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Visteonguy

Sandy, here is a picture of an unfinished cane next to one of my patterns, you can see the extra length, but I made the pattern extra long also. The finished canes seem to average about 34 inches with the rubber tip attached and most people said they felt about right, it can be cut to what ever length a particular person desires for comfortable use. I measured some of the unfinished canes I have left and they are from 39 to 42 inches long and the pattern you see is about 38 inches long .

Attached Thumbnails

   

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Terry

It seems like every where I go,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, there I am...

SandyT

Terry,
Thank you for taking the time to measure and take pictures. I really do appreciate it.
Now, for the finish (after I do all the sanding, that is)........Are there any rules as to what not to use since someone will be handling this can frequently?

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Visteonguy

Well,,, All I have ever used on them was a stain to make it the color you wanted it to end up and then I just sprayed on a few nice coats of Polyurathane. Once that is dry, the finish is pretty hard, and I have had nobody say they were not happy with them. I used "Gloss" but thats just my prefrence, you could use satin if you wanted, instead. I also have spray guns from other hobbies so I used them instead of brushing on the finish,, because its a lot faster,, you could use a brush though and be fine, or even a wipe on finish and also be good to go. I guess there are lots of ways to finish it ,, just end up using one that is durable and not likely to come off on the user's hand.

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Terry

It seems like every where I go,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, there I am...