133 - A slim, knobbly elder-wood knobstick with silver band.

The unseasoned wood is soft , flexible fibrous stuff, and there is a core of soft pith. I've heard it described as being more like rolled-up newspaper than wood!

However, once it's thoroughly seasoned, the loose fibrous structure compacts into a hard, stiff wood with ideal characteristics for making walking sticks. Thanks to the pith core, a stick made from this wood is very light and easy to handle. Any engineer will appreciate that a hollow tube will have a far greater strength to weight ratio than a solid rod of the same material.

I have to admit the bark is not very pretty, though. It's possible to obtain an attractive finish by partially stripping it, but in this case the bark was all wrinkled and loose, so it had to go. The wood underneath is almost white and lacking in visual interest, so I stained it a deep brown colour. This highlighted a certain patchiness and spottiness in the surface texture, resulting in an interesting "antiqued" appearance. I complemented this with a silver band (not hallmarked, but genuine sterling silver) and finished the stick with several coats of tough melamine lacquer.

The shank has some nice knobbles towards the bottom end. It's distinctly oval in cross-section at the top, tapering down to a nearly round cross section at the tip. The little knob fits the right hand superbly. Together with the hard, smooth finish, this makes for a really comfortable grip (though it's not so good in the left hand). Despite this stick's rather delicate appearance, it is really pretty tough and will offer the user plenty of support if needed.