Mango and Purple heart walking cane - Work in progress

[Matt Uchida]

This is a work in progress, I will update the title with pictures when done.
My grandma has started needing a cane to help her walk farther distances and I wanted to make her a nice one. I bought a bunch of mango and purple heart for a bunk bed I am going to work on and I know I will have extra.
So my thought was to make a cane out of one strip or mango (light color) and one strip of purpleheart (dark color) for a nice contrast and glue them together. I originally thought about steam bending it but that is too much work to get two pieces of wood bent right and then glued so my current idea is just make a long shaft of the two woods and then take a section of it and make a horizontal handle to be screwed on top. So I am thinking a strip of each wood about 1"x1/2" and glueing them together to get a 1" square shaft. Then take a router to it to get a nice round shaft, sand, and finish. Probably bolt and/or glue the top horizontal handle on. Lastly I am thinking of some type of accent wood or item I can set inside the handle. I will post what I figure out when I get to it.

I can't wait to get started but I would appreciate it if anyone sees any fundamental design flaws in my plan. I will try to take photos along the way too. I might even make a few and sell the extras to support my woodwork.

[Gus Dundon]

That sounds great! I am looking forward to seeing your project!

[Tony Shea]

Is there any reason why you couldn't do a bent lamination instead of steam bending (which you've ruled out). I think a cane with a curve would be a bit more elegant.

Where did you get your Mango?

[Matt Uchida]

I thought it would be too hard to bend two pieces and then try to match them up together. Plus then I don't have to build a steam box. I have also read that the canes with horizontal handles are preferred over the rounded handles.
I got the mango from a guy who cuts and mills it. I live in Hawaii so it is local wood for me. The purple heart I had to have ordered.

[Matt Uchida]

Ok, so I took a piece of 0.5" x 1" of mango and purple heart and glued them together using about 8 clamps of different types.
Now I have to figure out how to round it, I was thinking maybe a half in curved router bit would do the trick. Do it 4 times and I should have a 1 inch circle right?

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[ray hampton]

it looks ok this way BUT I would like to see four strips instead of two

[Chris Fite]

As one who uses a stick to get around, I would recommend some research into how heavily she will depend upon this cane for support. I would venture that a curved handle, although more difficult to make, might take a load more reliably and be more comfortable when doing so. Another thing to consider is making a place to install a lanyard. It is nice to be able to hang your cane from your wrist when standing doing something for a moment that requires both hands. If the cane is inadvertently dropped, it can be quite difficult to pick it up from the floor.

[ray hampton]

As one who uses a stick to get around, I would recommend some research into how heavily she will depend upon this cane for support. I would venture that a curved handle, although more difficult to make, might take a load more reliably and be more comfortable when doing so. Another thing to consider is making a place to install a lanyard. It is nice to be able to hang your cane from your wrist when standing doing something for a moment that requires both hands. If the cane is inadvertently dropped, it can be quite difficult to pick it up from the floor.

IT is not to hard to pick stuff up off of the floor, First you drop something, then you fall down , then you use what ever you drop to crawl to the crane so the crane can pick you up, NO , I not talking about sandhill crane

[Mike Null]

My wife has used a cane for many years and the length of the cane is extremely important to efficient and comfortable use. Just this past week she was stopped at the supermarket by a lady using a cane. The lady complained that the cane was of little help and actually caused her some pain. My wife looked at her cane and the lady who was shorter than my wife and immediately ascertained that the lady's cane was too long. Fortunately, it was an adjustable cane so my wife showed her how to adjust it and recommended a length for her to try.

The other thing that's really important is the comfort of the handle. We buy the adjustable canes at the drug stores or Sam's but my wife has made foam rubber wrappers for the handle to ease the pressure on her palm. Something form fitting in a wood handle might work well.

Sorry to be posting so late but I'm just catching up on my reading.

[Matt Uchida]

Progress update and problem:
I shaped the handles and glued the shaft to the handle. I used a quarter inch fluted fowl stuck halfway into the handle and hallway into the shaft to add strength. So today I was going to do some finish sanding with a random orbit sander, which ended up having the rubber band inside brake.. Anyway I noticed that the handle seemed to have a little play, and more than just wood flex. So I looked at the joint and I noticed that if i tried to bend the handle at all there was a small space where the joint was, somehow the glue came loose. I am making 6 at once so I went back to look at the rest and found out that they all have the same problem. It is only a very small space that opens up when flexed but as the handle will have weight put on it I think it would only increase over time. The dowels seem to be holding the handles on alright but I want a solid handle. I would hate to learn some little old lady fell because the handle on a cane I made broke...

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I was using Titebond 2 on the mango and purple heart wood. Do any of those woods not bond well with wood glue? Because of the shape I was never able to clamp the wood when I was gluing it, I ended up just holding it for a few minutes then setting it down. I think I roughed up the wood enough and though I didn't use any chemical or water to clean away dust I gave the joint faces a brush down before gluing them.
Here is a picture of one of the canes to show what I have done so far.
Also another update: I wiggled the handle back and forth and was able to use some force to break the handle off. You can see in the picture that the dowel failed but the wood remained almost perfectly intact. So the glue did break before the wood. There is a glue residue on both the mango and the purple heart. The glue residue on the purple heart does seem to have a little bit of the glue peeling off. I am not sure if the glue failed because of a lack of strong clamp or that it didn't bond to the wood. And if it didm't bond to the wood, which wood didn't it bond to? A small amount of mango wood did break off so I am inclined to think that the glue bonded to the mango ok.

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[ray hampton]

did you consider using hose clamps to hold the wood together while the glue was drying ?

[Matt Uchida]

did you consider using hose clamps to hold the wood together while the glue was drying ?

I don't think that would have worked... Do you mean put it around the joint? I don't think that would work because of the curved nature, plus i did some of the shaping after it was glued so I didn't have a smooth surface between the two pieces of wood where a clamp would grip right. Did you have a different idea with a hose clamp?

I would have hoped the wood would glue better than this even if not clamped tightly. I am thinking maybe the purple heart wood was oily though when I searched on the internet I didn't see any complaints of titebond working with purple heart... I don't know if I can get the apart to try and clean and reglue with an epoxy but that is my only thought of what might work right now...

[Maurice Ungaro]

Hate to have you rework the handle design, but if you created a full tenon on the end of the handle, and slotted the cane to receive it, you would have a dang strong bridle joint. For extra measure, I'd peg the joint too.

[Ryan Mooney]

Hate to have you rework the handle design, but if you created a full tenon on the end of the handle, and slotted the cane to receive it, you would have a dang strong bridle joint. For extra measure, I'd peg the joint too.

Something like this^^

Your big problem is that the top of the cane is end-grain and it will never glue well. It also looks like the tennon going from the handle into the cane is possibly partially cross grain (that is the tennon stub is cross grain) so you have a small cross section of weaker cross grain wood required to support the head. You could probably mostly overcome that with a stronger mechanical fastener (and embedded bolt in the cane that is screwed into epoxied in nuts in the handle or something). If you want to stay all wood you will need to carefully examine the wood grain alignment and make sure you have sufficient side grain-side grain glue contact and also sufficient mechanical strength in the wood that is used in the joints.

[Stan Calow]

Either of these ideas might ruin the look that you want, but I would consider drilling throughout the top of handle into shaft and epoxying-in a steel rod, with a plug to hide it. The other would be to add a metal ferule at the joint. I can see there will be a lot of stress on that joint as the weight of hand on handle would be off center, and dowel may not be enough. My two cents.