Caber questions.

[beloitpiper]

Does anybody have any suggestions on making a caber? I know they need to be tapered, but any hints that I might want to know before I start scaling this monster log down to size?

[Mumbles]

Good question!

[Tartan Hiker]

I'm no heavy athlete, but I think that the taper is the natural taper of the tree. The caber is just de-barked and smoothed. Tapering a big log down to tossable size would require....more machinery than I can imagine.

And if you want to look extra-burly, use a nice, dry poplar!

[Yaish]

For the most durable caber, you want a natural log that has its own taper.

You can taper a piece of lumber, but cut lumber is not going to be as strong and resistant to cracking as a whole tree. Cabers take a LOT of stress when they get a bad turn.

You can also use lumber without a taper and that actually makes a great practice caber. Without a caber it's "dead stick", and that much more difficult to turn. It does make it easier to pick, but harder to turn.

[Piper]

I run Highland Games at a couple of Black Powder Rendezvous. I've always simply used a small tree cut and debarked (usually, once or twice the bark has been left on due to time contraints). One of the events is coming up at the end of the month. The caber there is on its 5th season. I have a backup ready, but I believe the main stick is going to have to be retired to the firewood stack at the end of the games. There's another event on the same site in September. I'll cut September's caber while I'm at the Spring event. The current Caber is maple. The tree was about 7" - 8" at the base, and tapers to about 5" over a length of roughly 14". I want the replacement to be a bit thinner, but longer. This site doesn't have the nice selection of maple that the old site had. There's some good candidates in an oak thicket though. I just hope they lose enough weight through drying out from May to September. Oak can be a bear for weight. I drop one and peel it before I break camp in May,and hope for the best.

[dyfed]

This site might give you some answers http://www.nasgaweb.com

[beowulf67]

Hey Piper,
What does your caber weigh? 14ft is fairly short for a caber, but depending on the weight it could be a bear to toss. Sounds like fun!

[Alan H]

Im using an 85 pound, 14 foot long 6 x 6 dead stick that I rounded off (kind of) at the ends.

It's not the same thing as a real caber, but it works for practice. Tim C turns it almost every time, I turn it about two times out of three.

[Mumbles]

Id sure love to be able to toss that caber one day. That thing sounds heavy. Im a really scrawny guy (6'0" 150lbs) so I dont think Ill ever be strong enough for that kind of thing. Though it looks like there is a "lightweight" class.

[Phil E. Begg]

Simple - you just chuck it up in your lathe, decide how much taper you want, and....




Phil