The basic "inspiration" came from work from my mentor Barry and a walking stick he made, and from another great machinist (Will) who made a two-piece, knurled Ti spear.
So I decided to combine both ideas, and to make my son an unique walking stick in multiple hollow pieces, which could be used to store items inside of the hollow sections (aka, survival stick). So I started with Barry's suggestion and got some Schedule 80 3/4" Aluminum pipe (1.050" OD and .742" ID), and cut the long piece into multiple pieces:
Over many days, I cleaned up the OD, the ID, face them off, etc.:
I then threaded all of the ends:
Then started working on the "connectors":
and success - they thread together!
Then thread the other side:
After some cleanup:
This is how the pieces started to look like when screwed together:
For the tip on one of them, I took a piece of 4041 steel and made this on one end:
and this on the other - this was done "by hand" since I don't yet have the lathe attachment for creating curved surfaces:
To make the sections lighter, I marked them:
To aid in assembly, the "connectors" there then knurled:
Of course, I made "several" pieces:
This is how the connectors look like with two sections attached:
Remember that I marked the sections to make them lighter? Here I take the extra thickness, while leaving a larger OD roughly in the middle for another knurled surface:
This of course took a LONG time - lots of machining and knurling to do:
I made one "cap":
I then drill/bored it:
And I then installed a compass in it:
At that point (last fall) I had one completed unit, so we took it camping. Of course, all of the other kids were extremely impressed with my son's "high tech" walking stick
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to finish the remainder pieces, although I experimented with the knurling a little:
This was swirl/twist knurling (thanks again Will!):
I also discovered, that if while doing the twist knurling, if I press too far the knurler against the work piece, it stops cutting, and is creates a lighter, pattern, with twice the number of lines. The two on the bottom are normal twist knurled, and the two at the top are done with this light twist pattern:
Close-up:
All 3x knurling styles together:
You can re-assemble the pieces to end of with different length's, but here is how they look like right now (for reference, that is a standard 6 foot high wood fence). The one in the middle was the first one I finished last fall, which my son has taken camping twice now:
Will
So I decided to combine both ideas, and to make my son an unique walking stick in multiple hollow pieces, which could be used to store items inside of the hollow sections (aka, survival stick). So I started with Barry's suggestion and got some Schedule 80 3/4" Aluminum pipe (1.050" OD and .742" ID), and cut the long piece into multiple pieces:
Over many days, I cleaned up the OD, the ID, face them off, etc.:
I then threaded all of the ends:
Then started working on the "connectors":
and success - they thread together!
Then thread the other side:
After some cleanup:
This is how the pieces started to look like when screwed together:
For the tip on one of them, I took a piece of 4041 steel and made this on one end:
and this on the other - this was done "by hand" since I don't yet have the lathe attachment for creating curved surfaces:
To make the sections lighter, I marked them:
To aid in assembly, the "connectors" there then knurled:
Of course, I made "several" pieces:
This is how the connectors look like with two sections attached:
Remember that I marked the sections to make them lighter? Here I take the extra thickness, while leaving a larger OD roughly in the middle for another knurled surface:
This of course took a LONG time - lots of machining and knurling to do:
I made one "cap":
I then drill/bored it:
And I then installed a compass in it:
At that point (last fall) I had one completed unit, so we took it camping. Of course, all of the other kids were extremely impressed with my son's "high tech" walking stick
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to finish the remainder pieces, although I experimented with the knurling a little:
This was swirl/twist knurling (thanks again Will!):
I also discovered, that if while doing the twist knurling, if I press too far the knurler against the work piece, it stops cutting, and is creates a lighter, pattern, with twice the number of lines. The two on the bottom are normal twist knurled, and the two at the top are done with this light twist pattern:
Close-up:
All 3x knurling styles together:
You can re-assemble the pieces to end of with different length's, but here is how they look like right now (for reference, that is a standard 6 foot high wood fence). The one in the middle was the first one I finished last fall, which my son has taken camping twice now:
Will
