Steampunk Walking Cane

Some time back I was able to buy what looked like a really old walking cane from a gentleman at a flea market just outside of Kannapolis.  The cane had a very heavy handle on the top that I could tell was made out of some substantial metal and there were the remnants of a compass right in the center of it.  The guy told me that he didn't know any of the history but was sure of three things: it was old, I could definitely fix the compass and he wanted me to buy it.  After we negotiated a little while I ended up purchasing the cane for ten dollars.

The compass has never seemed like the original item that went in the top of the metal grip for this cane to me.  It's plastic and and the needle is just your basic red tipped pointer you can find in any cheap "survival" pack.  I was intrigued by the idea of fixing the compass though and also having a decent looking cane to carry around while in my steam gear so this became one of my many projects lined up to work on.  I started by unscrewing the grip from the wooden cane itself and found that I could press the compass from inside the hollow grip and pop it out the casing.  I then took the plastic lens off and simply pressed the needle back onto the pin so it could float around again and point north.  I used Goop to glue the lens back in place and made sure to press it down enough to keep the needle from slipping off again inside the compass.  The whole thing then pressed easily back into the metal grip.

I toyed with a lot of different ideas about adding components to change the look of the grip to try to make it stand out more.  Things from wrapping coils of wire around sections of it to trying to determine how to possibly welding something seriously big on for a new look.  Some of the things that kept me from going this way was the practical, how would I hold the thing and walk around with metal bits stabbing me in the hand, to more sentimental things, should I be messing up this cool old walking cane.  Finally, I realized that what I should most likely do is expose the beauty of the old metal trapped underneath the many years worth of paint and grime.  The shape of the grip has a nice elegance to it just as it was but was so dark and blended so much with the wood of the stick that it was hard to see and appreciate.  These are the before pics:

I used a product that we have in our arsenal of tools and chemicals in our art studio called Bix to try to remove the outer layers of paint and to try to get at the metal underneath to see what it would look like.  Bix is a very powerful material that is painted onto the coating you want to remove and it soaks in to cause the paint to slough off.  The older the paint, the longer it must sit to do it's job and usually there is not a ridiculous amount of waiting involved.  In this case, I quickly found out that I would have to wait a lot longer than I'm used to.  I ended up painting one coat that sat all night long and the next day still another coat that sat for at least eight more hours.  When I was finally able to get the layers to flake off I had to use an old plastic SOS pad to liberate the flakes without taking any metal off.  I eventually came to the conclusion that one way to make this piece even more visually interesting would be to leave imperfect areas of paint to give a tarnished, aged look that is so essential to steampunk.  This is the final result of all that paint being stripped away:

To finalized it, I will spray the entire metal grip with a clear coat to protect the finish and maybe my own skin from absorbing unwanted elements out of the remaining old paint.  I just love the character that this walking cane has now that the paint is no longer hiding the metal work which has a beauty all its own.