Arrow of Light Hiking Staff

Totally unrelated to anything related to my cycling (which I have not done enough of in recent days... er... weeks... or um... months...

Anyway, back to my topic here.

My son is coming up to the end of Cub Scout career and about to start down the path of Boy Scouts, and he has earned his Arrow of Light, the highest award that you can earn in Cub Scouts. So, as both his father and his Webelos Leader, I wanted to do something special for him.

Well, we have also come to enjoy hiking together and he really likes to steal the hiking stick that I had when I was a Boy Scout. So, I decided to get him one of his own. There were a few things that I needed to do to it before it was ready to give him. All the details are in the captions below.

Here's a "before" picture. The new stick, on the left, was absolutely splinter-rific! (I'm very disappointed in that, scoutstuff.org.) I had a lot of sanding to do even if I wasn't doing anything else to it... 

Here's a bit of a close up. You can see how old and used mine is. I was ticking off all the miles I backpacked in 10-mile increments.  You can't see them all, but there are 4 sides of them...

One of the things that I wanted to do was put on a leather hiking stick handle that my son and I got branded at Webelos Resident Camp last summer. The problem was that any time you put any weight on it while hiking, it would slide on the stick. So I tried to figure out how to make it stay put. What I decided on was to cut out a small section and chisel out a section for the leather grip. I measured it out (you can see the pencil lines) and I used the knife to make my stop cuts on the north and south ends of that chiseling...

Now, before I started chiseling, I needed to secure the stick to keep it from squirming and wobbling. I made sure to wrap it in an old work towel to make sure that neither the clamps or the table scratched or damaged the wood.   

I've never really used a chisel before. Just like anything else, though, all it really took was patience and a willingness to go over your mistakes a time or ten...

Here's the south end of that work. I didn't need a lot cut out, I needed just enough to create a lip for the leather handle to hold onto so it would slide and slide all over the place. 

Here's a quick look at it after the bulk of the work had been done. 

...and then came all the sanding. Lots and lots of sanding! But it was finally ready for the rest of the work I had planned.

Here I am dry fitting the hiking staff medallions. I got one for each rank he earned in Cub Scouts. I was concerned about longevity, though. So I had figure out where everything would go. As it turns out the Arrow of Light Medallion is perfect at the halfway point, which is marked with the pencil tick above the oval Webelos shield. Please note, a couple of very wonderful tools that helped out. Firstly, the super glue does not hold thin metal on wood very well at all, but it holds it in place long enough to secure it with the brads. The second tool there are these wonderful magnetic jewelers needlenose pliers. They were phenomenal at holding and placing the brads as I nailed them into place.   

Here's the finished product. If there's any change I would make, I should have shellacked it, but now I know that for the next time I do one. Oh, and that comment above about "longevity"? You see, I had to make sure to leave enough room to add Boy Scout rank medallions all the way up to Eagle Scout. There's also plenty of room at the top should my son decide that he wants to add mile ticks at the top. Then again, it'll be his stick, so he can do whatever he wants to it at that point.   

Not only can you see all of the medallions on this one, but you can also see the new stick next to my old one. You can't really tell it unless you look for it, but stained the staff this after cutting it, but before putting shields on it. It's a walnut stain, which is just slightly darker than then the original wood, so it looks natural and even. 

Here's the leather grip that I put so much work into. It's the Boy Scout Fleur-de-lis. I actually managed to size it quite well. The part that I chiseled out is a whopping 1/16th of an inch too large, so there's the tiniest amount of wiggle in it, but it still serves it's main purpose: it won't slide up and down, but it holds because what I chiseled out makes the grip nearly flush with the stick itself. 

Lastly, here's the backside of the grip. As I said, you can see that this is pretty flush.