Horn and Antler

Buffalo horn

Buffalo horn is a by product of buffalo meat production. Water buffalo are reared for their meat like cows. The buffalo horn that we buy as stickmakers are the tips of horn and are therefore solid (ie no hollow middle to worry about).

It is usually black in colour but other variations are available. Horn is very hard but can be bent round a former or jig after boiling for half an hour or so. Horn is made of compressed hair that means that it can be bent and reshaped after heating.

Horn spacers can look very attractive when incorporated into a stick between a handle and shank. The horn in the photograph is about 16" long which is about the longest usually available. To see how I bend buffalo horn go to bending buffalo horn.

Antler

Antler is a great material to incorporate into a walking stick that is nice to use and looks really natural. Antlers are cast each year by stags between March and early May. The ones in the photograph are red deer antler coronets.

The inside of an antler contains the quick which is like a soft pith that has to be either soaked in resin to harden it up before it can be used or the pith is removed and replaced with a harder material. Antler is actually white in colour but gets stained during its life on the deer by every day activities. Antler cannot be bent or reformed in anyway as it is formed like bone.

Rams horn

Rams horn generally provides the greatest challenge to the stickmaker for a number of reasons. Quality rams horn is hard to get these days. Rams are generally slaughtered when they can no longer perform for the farmer rather than at an old age, therefore their horns lack wall thickness, ie less material to work with.

Unlike buffalo horn tips rams horn is hollow for quite a proportion of its length and needs to be filled to stop collapsing of the walls before being worked. Rams horn is also oval in shape and needs to be squeezed to a round shape, this proccess is known as bulking. Working with horn is actually called dressing the horn.

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