Buffalo, Ram and Cow Horn

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Click on any image for further details and pictures.		Price (in pounds sterling)	Click below
130	An unusually shaped buffalo horn t-handle mounted on a hand-turned shank of sapele or similar wood, and decorated with mother-of-pearl.	SOLD
129	A very special stick for a very special occasion. A formal cane made of buffalo horn, cowhorn, bone and ebony for our son's wedding.	NOT FOR SALE!
125	An attractive little knobstick. The top is Charolais cow horn capped with Zebrano wood and decorated with black buffalo horn, bone and mother-of-pearl. The reclaimed shank is rosewood .	SOLD
124	A ram's horn and dog-rose thumbstick. Slim but strong.	SOLD
121	A rather nice market stick. Holly shank with a handle made of buffalo horn & antler mounted on a silver collar.	SOLD
119	A fancy nose-out market stick for a lady. Ram's horn handle, chestnut shank and silver collar.	SOLD
118	Another cow horn knobstick. The knob is capped with laburnum wood and decorated with a bearded collie enamelled badge and mother-of-pearl inlay. The holly shank has some very distinctive markings.	SOLD
112	A slim but strong knobstick. Cow horn knob on a dog-rose shank, embellished with mock amber.	SOLD
106	A neat walking stick with a buffalo horn handle and a shank of turned Padauk wood.	SOLD
093	Nose-out market stick with a ram's horn handle and hand-rounded mahogany-type shank.	SOLD
086	T-handle walker stick with a buffalo horn handle and a sturdy stripped blackthorn shank.	SOLD
084	Crook with a small buffalo horn handle and a slim stripped holly shank.	SOLD
083	Crook with a small buffalo horn handle and a gold/silver hazel shank.	SOLD
080	Market stick with a silver-capped buffalo horn handle and sapele/mahogany shank.	SOLD
070	A slim crook or market stick: nose-out ram's horn handle on a stripped blackthorn shank.	SOLD
069	Cardigan stick. The handle is made from ram's horn and the shank from Indian rosewood. With embedded decorations.	SOLD
060	Blackthorn staff. Buffalo horn handle with silver collar and pewter stag's head decoration.	SOLD
059	T-handle walker stick. Buffalo horn handle on a blackthorn shank. Decorated with a pewter roe buck's head and engraved disc.	SOLD
054	Market stick: Ram's horn thistle-nose head with black-faced ram's horn inlays and embellishments, on a sweet chestnut shank.	SOLD
048	Market stick: Ram's horn thistle-nosed head with embellishments, on a dark twisty hazel shank.	SOLD
047	Crook: Ram's horn thistle-nosed head with embedded stag's head, running hare and other embellishments, on a dark hazel shank.	SOLD
044	Crook: Black buffalo horn head on a hazel shank.	NOT FOR SALE
033	Thumbstick: Buffalo horn head on a blackthorn shank, with embellishments. Made to the requirements of a lady client.	SOLD
014	Market stick: Ram's horn head on a dark hazel shank.	NOT FOR SALE
023	Walker stick: The head made from black buffalo horn and banksia nut, embellished, on a silver hazel shank.	SOLD
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About horn...

Horn is considered by many to be the ultimate material for making a stick handle. It's tough and resilient (though ram's horn is rather soft and easy to mark). It's cool and smooth to the touch and slides through the hand nicely. Ram's horn, in particular, has a semi-transparent appearance, revealing steaks of varied colour deep inside; while buffalo horn, though most commonly jet-black, often contains subtle bands of slightly lighter colour. It can occasionally be obtained in other colours, from a light translucent smoky grey to red, green, or even blue. The third possibility is ox horn, though this is usually too thin-walled for our purpose and rather difficult to obtain as hornless cattle varieties now dominate in the UK and cattle are now slaughtered at an early age, before their horns have developed sufficient length or thickness.

Compared to working with wood, making a stick handle from horn is a black art. There isn't sufficient time or space to explain it in detail here, but basically it involves boiling the horn thoroughly to soften it; compressing the thick end, which is hollow, in order to fill the empty space inside; heating and "bulking up" the rest of it to make it vaguely round in section; flattening the whole thing into a single plane and bending it into vaguely the right sort of shape; and then filing it down to the final shape. This all involves the use of a good deal of brute force, mainly applied with big vices and cramps; plenty of heat from a hot air gun (too much and the horn becomes scrap!) and the conviction that this unlikely-looking, smelly, shrivelled, dirty object can be transformed into a thing of beauty.

That's ram's horn. Buffalo is another kettle of smelly things. It's a much harder material and though it's solid all the way through, doing away with the need for "necking" and "bulking-up", it's more difficult to bend and has a nasty habit of "de-laminating" (the layers of horn become detached from each other) if you don't treat it right.

Any sort of horn starts life sitting on top of the head of a sheep, buffalo, cow, goat, antelope or whatever. Unlike deer antlers, "proper" horns consist essentially of keratin, the same sort of natural plastic that toenails, hoofs and hair are made of. They are not discarded annually like antler, but are a permanent fixture to the animal's skull. This means that you only get one pair of horns from an animal - and usually only when it's dead, at that. There is a reasonably steady supply of buffalo horn from Asia where water buffalo are farmed for meat, but the supply of ram's horn is very erratic. This has not been helped by a steady stream of confused legislation aimed at curbing the spread of BSE and controlling trade in animal products from endangered species. While one applauds the sentiments behind these moves, the end results are often badly thought out, impeding perfectly legitimate trade in environmentally sound materials.

I learnt some of the black art of horn-work from Dr Nicol Murray's excellent evening classes in the subject, and I've had further instruction from Grand Master Of The Black Art Of Buffalo Horn, Martin Hyslop of Hillend Horncraft. Because of the expense and the time involved (as well as the smell!), I don't make many ram's horn-handled sticks.

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This page last updated Wednesday, 13 December 2006