While I was waiting for the Camaro to be picked up I thought I’d knock out a quick little project.
I noticed last week on vacation that my FIL’s balance was a bit worse than usual. He had actually fallen going into his trailer one afternoon and scraped his elbow up pretty good. He was given his FIL’s cane about a year ago by my wife’s grandmother but he refuses to use it.
We went for a drive one day and my wife and he were talking about his balance. My wife was just mentioning she was concerned and that’s when I blurted out that if I were to custom build him a cane would he use it? He eagerly said “sure “. Now let me preface by saying I have never built a cane nor do I have any idea how, but I figured it’s metal so I’ll figure it out. I knew I had a Hurst shifter handle and so that had to be used.
Upon some quick Google searches I got a couple of pretty good ideas. This is what I started with, handle and piece of 3/4” x .065” 6061 tubing.
A small drop of 1” 6061 that will be turned down, threaded and pressed into the tubing.
I wasn’t sure how well the aluminum would thread and hold up so I found a piece of brass that was already threaded to the 5/8”-18 so I just needed to cut it off and chamfer.
Facing the end of the tubing and prepping to accept the threaded slug.
I really need to get serious and machine an outboard spider for my lathe. Oh well, nothing a rag shoved in the spindle around the OD to hold it from flopping around.
Polishing the tubing with emery, then Scotchbtite followed by aluminum polish.
After pressing the threaded slug in I decided to polish it before cutting to length.
I was trying to figure out how I could securely hold the shaft while I tightened the handle into place, then I realized I had a collet system that wouldn’t mar the finish.
A little Loctite and the handle is secured.
Final polish by hand.
Lastly a rubber chair protector from local hardware store and some 3M Weatherstrip adhesive to hold it in place.
Completed.
Thanks for looking.
Mike
