On Aug 20, 9:42*am, Lee Nowell wrote:
On Aug 20, 2:23*pm, RicodJour wrote:



On Aug 20, 8:49*am, "john hamilton" wrote:

Have been asked for advice on making a folding wooden walking stick for a
large heavy man. So its got to be something a bit stronger than usual.. Was
thinking of something like using 2 inches (5cm) by 3/4 inche (2cm) in cross
section size.

I searched and read the preferred wood for making aircraft is Douglas Fir,
so i thought that would be good for this stick. (good strength to weight
ratio) but I guess that is difficult to buy already cut to size here in
London. U.K.? Would some kind of building grade plywood be stronger, I
wonder?

The tricky part would be some *self-locking* hinge. Does such a hinge now
exist? I remember very many years ago seeing such a thing (I think on
something agricultural). *Would be grateful if anyone had advice on this.
Thanks.

I don't know of anything that would work - doesn't mean there isn't
one, just that a walking stick presents a lot of problems. *Not much
cross sectional area, round and not square, could be subject to fairly
high stress and if it fails there's a _huge_ problem.

What about modeling your cane after one of the folding canes already
on the market? *The typical ones have nesting aluminum sections that
are held together by an elastic cord.

The two most likely approaches:
- wrap wood veneers around a store bought cane and then gussy it up
- start with metal tube sections and cut solid wood to fit the tubes.
Cut a piece of wood in half, use a core box bit to hollow out the two
sections, then epoxy the two pieces back together around the tube and
turn it on a lathe.

Either way, inlays and metal banding would dress it up and strengthen
the connection points.


How about hinging with a regular hinge and fitting a sliding metal
collar to prevent lateral movement of the joint. *When the user wants
to collapse the stick they slide up the collar and use the hinge to
fold it. *When they use the stick, the open it out and let the collar
slide over the joint (obviously with a stop to prevent it sliding all
the way down the stick). *A more tricky question might be what you do
about the handle as this would take a great deal of stress if jointed
to the stick.

The problem with sliding latches and locks is that they leave room for
human error. A walking stick that is not fully locked is very
dangerous. Very. Lawsuit and broken bones dangerous. The bungee
cord (shock cord to some of you folks) solution keeps the pieces under
constant tension, is very quick to assemble and disassemble, and it is
immediately obvious if the sections aren't fully locked in place.

There's a big risk in such a project, and a very large downside. I
don't know that this is the time to be reinventing the wheel. Then
again, maybe it is - just make sure the thing is foolproof, not
susceptible to wear, and way stronger than needed.

R