Tokens ~ Education ~ Making a Cane with Shaded Plugs

Making A Cane With Shaded Plugs

written by: Valerie Hollis Without Frames

Step 1

Begin with a shaded plug (To find out how to make one of these from a Skinner blend, please see "How To Make A Shaded Plug").

Step 2

Begin reducing this plug into a round log by working from the center outwards.

Step 3

Continue reducing, lengthening, and rounding-out the edges.

Step 4

Once the edges are rounded, it can be lengthened further by rolling it on the work surface.

Step 5

Continue reducing until it is approximately 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

Step 6

Trim the edge.

Step 7

The plug has now been reduced into a cane and should look something like this.

Step 8

Cut five 1 inch sections from this cane.

Step 9

Set aside the remaining part of the cane to be used later.

Step 10

Pinch the logs to form petals or teardrops as shown in this picture.

Step 11

Now they should look like this.

Step 12

I chose a bull's eye cane from my collection to use as the center.

Step 13

Place the 'petals' around the center.

Step 14

Reduce and lengthen the remainder of the cane from Step 9 to yield 5 more 1-inch sections.

Step 15

Pinch each of these sections as in Step 10, except this time, pinch them a bit pointier at the narrow end and wider at the base.

Step 16

These will be used to fill in the gaps. . .

Step 17

So that it looks like this.

Step 18

Compress it together to eliminate the gaps between the pieces.

Step 19

Reduce the cane from the center outwards.

Step 20

Once the cane is reduced, cut the end and have a look.

Step 21

Here's a view of what mine looks like.

Step 23

In this picture you see a close-up of the raw cane slices. As you can see, these slices are over 1/2 of an inch in diameter and the horizontal 'lines' created by accordion-folding the original plug are barely visible (see Step 7 for a comparison). The further you reduce the cane, the less visible those 'lines' will be.

Below is a picture of some beads that I made with this cane. This is what they look like before sanding / finishing:

To see how to make a flower cane using another type of shaded plug, please see the following tutorial:

Making A Flower Cane With Shaded Petals

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