Cane care

So, a subject I wanted to touch on with this ramble is Cane care, rather than a verbal podcast I thought id use the ramble to maybe show some visual representations.Canes. Majority of us have seen them and a lot of people have either used or had them used upon popular areas such as bums and hands.

There are many different types of cane now from wood to various synthetic materials. Each have their own pro and cons how-ever I am talking about natural wooden canes on this topic.Natural wood canes, such as rattan are exactly what they say on the tin. It's a natural material. The thing about this material is that if you put prolonged stress on it the material will lean that way and stay there permanently.

Wicker furniture is made by steaming wooden lengths, bending into place and letting them cool.

A common problem I see is the storing of natural material canes such as putting them in a bucket with the handle at the top. This creates a weight to make the cane lean against your storage bucket causing them to bend.

Synthetic canes can also suffer from this but wood ones tend to be the main culprit, especially if you have a heavy handle such as the one that's been plaited with leather. Another common mistake is placing canes on tables with more than fifty percent hanging over, again this will cause the cane to start to bend downwards with gravity.

As you can see from the above image from an image I have recently seen, there are two canes showing heavy bends from where they have been against a storage bucket with the heavier end of the cane resting above causing the strain. Keeping them near heat will also dry the wood out making them less springy and more likely to crack and break with use.

The easiest way to store them is to hang by the handle against a wall or use a storage tube with the handles down first.

With storing canes also comes with keeping them clean. Again with natural material canes more care is often needed than synthetic. It is often good practice to linseed oil the canes before use, two coats with a day to dry between. This will make the canes more supple and seal the wood better making it more hygienic to wipe clean sweat and minor bodily fluids for play with potential multiple people.

Minor bodily fluids. That's things like sweat and skin moisture. These themselves need a good cleaning method with something none alcohol and none bleach based to protect the wood but something good enough to clean properly. Clinell or Milton is a common cleaning product used.

Something that irritates me is people that cane to make someone bleed. Hitting someone to the point of making them bleed is going to give a larger impact of hygiene than some people realise. Posting pictures up of a bleeding backside surrounded by carpet and wallpaper in a space used by multiple people just makes my skin crawl and I will leave you to think about the implications of that yourself.

The other problem is the cane itself. Even with linseed oil and treatments on the cane, the natural material can still have minor splitting and cracking with use where materials such as blood can deposit and easily transfer onto another moist surface.

Canes are best kept to an individual but sweat and general skin moisture can be kept at bay with the cleaners such as Milton and clinell to a certain point. However, blood is a different kettle of fish.

Blood can contain far more dangerous materials which can transfer to another person

Synthetic canes are a good substitute for this kind of extreme cane play as such as Delrin. This material is moisture resistant, high impact strength and flexible making it very easy to keep clean with stronger substances without damaging the cane, such as steam cleaning which could cause rattan canes to bend.

If you are going to use a cane, then you need to be responsible not only for the physical implications of swishing it about but also for the hygiene and maintenance of keeping it in good working condition and clean and the surrounding area in which you use them. Swishing a cane around with blood on it is a massive contamination risk to the space around you.

Canes hitting pre-existing injuries such as bruises can cause the skin the split and then your back to the blood contamination issue.

Use a bit of common sense before showing off on popular sites what your up to with your contaimination risks.