065 - An elegant and unusual thumbstick.
The head is made from a natural fork of sycamore, while the slim, smooth shank
is a dog-rose stem. The two are joined together via a collar of deer antler.
The natural knobbles in the sycamore provide a comfortable grip for the fingers to curl round, while there is plenty of room for the thumb in the wide notch.
The yellow colour of the sapwood is relieved with patches of buff-grey watermarking.
The stem of a wild dog-rose can grow to an enormous length, while maintaining an almost perfectly round cross-section with very little taper. This shank may look as if it's been turned on a lathe, but in fact that's just the natural shape (after a bit of straightening work).
I cut this stem in an Oxfordshire wood, but have quite a few more seasoning which I found mostly in farm hedgerows. It grows like a weed around here (as does sycamore, if it comes to that!).
A dog-rose shank is a little more flexible than, say, hazel, but very strong - fine for a thumbstick, which is used for balance rather than supporting your body weight.
Here's a close-up of the shank.
I stripped off the outer bark (and the thorns, of course) to reveal the inner layers, giving us "contour maps" where each thorn was attached. After smoothing down, I darkened the surface with a chemical action, resulting in this rich mottled red-brown colour.
Because the under-bark is rather "fluffy" and potentially vulnerable, I have treated the shank to many coats of thin yacht varnish, soaking into the bark and turning it into a good hard surface which will stand up to quite hard knocks.
A fine, good-looking, hard-wearing and comfortable thumbstick. Max height to thumb-rest 50.5 inches.
SOLD