Bobs Stickmaking Pages - A holly, buffalo horn, antler & silver market stick, #121


	121 - A market stick. Buffalo horn & antler on a holly shank with silver collar.
This is a good strong stick made for serious walking. The handle was worked from black buffalo horn, with a nose section made from a tine of red deer antler. The stout holly shank was stripped of bark and fitted to the handle via a thick Edinburgh-hallmarked silver collar. This was, to say the least, "interesting" - the round collar had to be eased and stretched to fit the oval shank. The antler for the nose was carefully selected to match the shape and size of the buffalo horn section, and mounted so that the sideways bend of the antler was incorporated into the design of the handle. From side-on, the overall shape is completely conventional, but from any other angle one can see the nose curling across the plane of the neck and crown. Note - it's very difficult to capture the colour and tonal range of the combination of black buffalo horn with white antler, pale holly wood, and silver with a digital camera. Now when I were a lad we would use a fast film, expose for the dark areas and "dodge-in" the highlights in the darkroom when printing...



	I felt my usual trick of filling the texture of the antler with brass-filled resin would be inappropriate here, and left the natural material to speak for itself.

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