Castanea
Established Member
In a bid to make a Christmas present for my partner's son - a drummer - I decided to try making drum sticks. I didn't have much wood which was both dry and long enough. What I did have was a 4" square piece of oak three feet long. I ripped it into three one way and three the other with the chain saw to get nine 17" long sticks then turned my square sticks to 14 or 15mm dowels before shaping the end, sanding, waxing and parting off to 16". It sounds easy but the first couple were very slow. After that they were just slow. I managed all nine but it took me all day.
I'm not in any rush to do any more but I did get some good practice in supporting long thin bits of wood which wanted to chatter and whip. Also lots of good skew practice so a good day on the lathe and happy with what I achieved even though the final product doesn't look much like a whole day's work!
Hope they're some use and he likes them
Having begun to get the hang of using one hand to hold the wood and control the skew I think after Christmas I'll be trying some of Richard Rafan's "Ego Sticks" as demonstrated by Sam Angelo on YouTube today. Should be interesting!
I'm not in any rush to do any more but I did get some good practice in supporting long thin bits of wood which wanted to chatter and whip. Also lots of good skew practice so a good day on the lathe and happy with what I achieved even though the final product doesn't look much like a whole day's work!
Hope they're some use and he likes them
Having begun to get the hang of using one hand to hold the wood and control the skew I think after Christmas I'll be trying some of Richard Rafan's "Ego Sticks" as demonstrated by Sam Angelo on YouTube today. Should be interesting!