Friendship Cane Exchange

Wel­come to the W3E Friend­ship Cane Exchange Homepage

Seg­ments Carved By Pre­vi­ous Par­tic­i­pants: Pho­tos Pages

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Sev­en, Eight, Nine, Ten

Overview: A Friend­ship Cane seg­ment exchange.

Offi­cial Name: World Wide Woodc@rvers Exchange — Friend­ship Cane Divi­sion (W3E-FCD)

To Join:  You must be a cur­rent­ly sub­scribed mem­ber of one of these wood­carv­er lists or Face­book group to participate:

• Wood­carv­er Listserve
• Wood­carv­er List Face­book group
• Wood­carv­ing Fun List
• ASA List
• Knot­holes List
• Fishcarver2 List
• WOM-W3E Noti­fy List
• Or receive per­mis­sion of the Exchange Manager

Object: To pro­duce and exchange seg­ments for a “Friend­ship Cane.”

Intro­duc­tion:  A Friend­ship Cane con­sists of a 5/8″ dow­el, a cap, han­dle and foot, and a num­ber of seg­ments carved by dif­fer­ent carvers. The seg­ments are 2″ x 2″ x 3″ long blanks with a 5/8″ hole bored the length, and are assem­bled on the dow­el between the cap and foot, with the han­dle about 3/4 of the way up. Typ­i­cal­ly, 16 seg­ments are used to con­struct a cane, although there is no strict stan­dard. To have 16 seg­ments you will need to join two exchange groups.

Friend­ship Canes are some­times assem­bled as door prizes at carv­ing shows. This is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a friend­ship cane with­out buy­ing a boat load of door prize tickets!

The defin­i­tive book on friend­ship canes is most like­ly Carv­ing A Friend­ship Cane with Tom Wolfe and His Friends. In this case, the Friends are mem­bers of Car­i­ca­ture Carvers of Amer­i­ca, but seg­ments can also be done by chip carvers, pyro­g­ra­phers, ani­mal carvers, etc. Par­tic­i­pants in this activ­i­ty are encour­aged to beg, bor­row or buy a copy of this use­ful guide. Click here to see the Front Cov­er and Back Cov­er of Tom’s book. (Pho­tos used by kind per­mis­sion of Tom Wolfe.)

Sched­ule:  This is a LONG TERM com­mit­ment. Par­tic­i­pants will carve 8 seg­ments and ship 7 off to oth­er par­tic­i­pants. Par­tic­i­pants may carve 8 (near) iden­ti­cal pieces, if desired, or carve 8 com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent seg­ments. The com­mit­ment will be to carve and ship one seg­ment per month, mak­ing this project up to 8 months long. (It could be much short­er if folks get on a roll.)

Note: The first nine groups con­sist­ed of 16 carvers each. Begin­ning with Group 10 in Novem­ber 2000, the group size was reduced to 8.

Cane Seg­ment Round-Robin:  Too busy for to carve 8 cane seg­ments? Check out the Cane Seg­ment Round-robin. Short term, small groups of four — just the thing if your time is limited.

Par­tic­i­pants:  Any carv­er who can carve or burn eight 2“x2“x3” hunks of wood. Car­i­ca­ture carvers, real­is­tic carvers, bird carvers, ani­mal carvers, chip carvers, pyro­g­ra­phers, relief carvers, etc. etc. Like W3E exchanges, enthu­si­asm for carv­ing is more impor­tant than skill level.

Due to the time com­mit­ment, this pro­gram is clear­ly NOT for every­one.

Reg­is­tra­tion:  To reg­is­ter for W3E-FCD, go to the Enroll­ment form at the bot­tom of this page. Read the form, enter the request­ed infor­ma­tion, and sub­mit the form. Sit back and think about what you will carve. Scout out sources for 8 pieces of 2“x 2″ x3” carv­ing wood.  Drill the holes before carving.

Carv­ing Guide­lines:  With­in the bounds of rea­son­ably good taste, what­ev­er style and top­ic you wish to carve, as long as it’s done on a 2″ x 2″ x 3″ long block. Being forced to use this size block is a “lib­er­at­ing lim­i­ta­tion.“ (Ya’ got­ta do it in that 2x2x3” size, which means you can’t do com­plex, detailed pieces.

Need Ideas:  For 50 or more ideas for cane seg­ments, vis­it the Cane Idea List — click HERE.

Hints and Helps: For hints on assem­bly, info on obtain­ing blank seg­ments or fin­ished turn­ings, click HERE.

Start­ing An Exchange in Your Local Club:  Inter­est­ed in start­ing an exchange in your local club? If so, here’s help in the form of a blank Ros­ter and Sched­ule, along with a filled out Sam­ple Ros­ter. Need more help? You may use the infor­ma­tion on these pages, but please be sure to acknowl­edge the source. If you have fur­ther ques­tions, fell free to con­tact Matt Kelley.

Ques­tions, queries, posers?  Email the W3E Direc­tor, Matt Kel­ley.  Click the About link in the menu bar at the top of the page and use the con­tact form in the right side bar on that page . Please be sure to include “W3E-Spoon Ques­tion” as the first line in the mes­sage block.

Last update — 2–19-14