"Terrence J Smith" wrote in message
...
Guys:
This maybe off topic, but I need to make a better shepherds crook. Ones I
have purchased are worthless after about a year as the 'crook' opens up
and
makes it impossible to catch a goat (I raise meat goats).
The purchased variety are made of oak and seem to be steam bent.
My thoughts a
- Steam bend one myself. Would using green wood, maybe ash, make the bend
more permanent?
- Make the bend with thin strips and epoxy (a laminate).


I looked it up in a book for you -John Seymour the Forgotten Arts.

There are various ways of making walking sticks and crooks. Laminating is
not a traditional method and would be comparitively laborious. He mentions
three:

Heat to bend the hook of a walking stick.

Growing ash saplings with weights and formers to make them grow the right
shape.

And particularly for larger crooks - you find a long thin branch growing
from a much thicker one, and cut out from the tree the whole piece, so that
you have a shape a bit like an enormous tobacco pipe. From the 'bowl' of the
pipe you saw and then whittle and carve the hook of the crook.

Ask me if I am not making it clear

Tim w