One of the things I enjoy about making a project as small as hair sticks is that I can work with different kinds of wood that I otherwise can't get in sufficient quantities. Applewood is a case in point. It is probably the hardest and best quality wood I have available for making hair sticks. I've been able to get a small amount of it this spring because there are a lot of old half dead neglected apple trees growing in the bush around where I live. I cut some of the suckers off of them. Then I happened across the apple tree volunteer growing in the ditch on the edge of our road (pictured above). It needed some structural pruning which as you can see has been done. After the apple season is over this fall, I will prune it down to proper orchard standards. The resulting brush yielded quite a bit of material for me. That will have to do until later this year because I have no plans to try and harvest more applewood until the fall pruning season.
My oddball choice of wood for hair sticks is Red Osier Dogwood. This stuff has rich red winter bark and is used as an ornamental perennial is some landscaping designs. It's only commercial use that I can find is basket weaving. It grows wild here. This is a bit of an experiment but I think it will make an interesting bark on style hair stick. Because of last fall's ditch clearing, I couldn't get a lot of quality material. I'm curious to see how popular they will be. If they prove a hit, then next spring I will make sure that I harvest a lot of it. The supply sources should have bounced back by then.
I'm in the process of carving all this material. It's best done while the wood is green. Unfortunately, it doesn't sand or finish well until it has had a chance to season. I expect to be able to offer some of these sticks within a couple of weeks.
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