Whether walking down a city street, a public path, or into the backcountry, sometimes a little extra support is nice to have. Tango Charlie would love to let you lean on me to give you that support. My handcrafted walking sticks are made from strong young trees harvested from the coulees, sloughs, brush patches, and old farm yards that dot the countryside around Swift Current and the rest of South
west Saskatchewan. Once harvested the blanks are set aside to cure for a year to two years, depending on the type of wood and the time of year it is harvested. Different types of wood, give me different options for how to work it. Some can be green peeled, others must sit to dry or they will crack and split. Some offer uniform coloring, others are full of vibrant color differences. Some have beautiful bark that can be used and some have ugly bark with incredible wood underneath. And then within the different kinds of wood, each individual piece has it's own character and beauty that I try to bring to the surface to show. Blanks are peeled, or not, or partially peeled, depending on the impression the piece gives me. Peeling is done with a combination of a good old jack knife and a high speed cutting bit in my rotary tool. Once the peeling is done and I have rounded and trimmed any branches that need to be done, the sanding begins. With the stick balanced across my knees in a comfy old chair and a palm sander in my hand, each piece is slowly sanded top to bottom and back to top. They are gone over with 40, 60, 80, 150 grit sandpapers until it nice and smooth and any marks left from peeling are gone. I then do any of the carving that may go into a piece and fit the end for a foot piece. The piece is then ready for it's final twice up and down with 220 grit paper. After the final sanding the stick will have any of the wording burned into that needs to be burned, and is then ready to be finished. The finish that a stick gets will vary depending on the character of the stick. I use a Diamond coat Varathane in either a high gloss or satin finish, or I use a bee's wax and oil combination. The final step is waiting for someone like you to pick it up and start putting some miles on it.
