I made my first 4 today.  I was barefooted with shorts and enjoying a warm spring day.  The first two were from a black locust with a slight bend.  I cut it in half lengthwise with a table saw and wittled it down like an airplane wing.

The second two were made from a rough cut hickory stave that turned out to be bit wormy as it was seasoning.  I threw it out in the yard for the kids to play with over the winter, but alway felt sorry for it (I get a bit sentimental for wood I plan to make into a bow  )  These were straight limbs I shaped out as a airplane wing.  All 4 were about 28 inches long.

After an hour or so of wittling, I threw them.  WOW!!!  Why did it take me until I was 41 years old to make these and throw these!?!?  To any reading this who has not tried a rabbit stick, try it!!!  I've made bows, atlatls, slings etc.  but for some reason the stick just seemed too simple.  (I feel like a snob now.)  I can't describe the power that these sticks hit with!!!  And accuracy comes a lot quicker than with slinging.  

I will try to post some picks, but photobucket changed their format and I am temporarily flumoxed, but again, if you have never made or thrown a rabbit stick, you're missing out big time.  Don't waste a good portion of your life like I did  

 

Topic added to the PW's index.
Greetings,
Mauro.

squirrelslinger wrote on Mar 29^th, 2013 at 12:52pm:

I haven't made a hawthorn one, I'm a newb, but I'm going by my axiom on bowyering.   There isn't really a good or bad bow wood, the harder/denser wood makes thinner/flatter bows (or throwing sticks.)  The lighter/softer wood make thicker/wider bows (throwing sticks.)Hawthorne is pretty dense wood, so it would probably work out well as a thin rabbit stick.

To all the experienced rabbit stickers--  If my axiom is flawed, feel free to correct me.

Treat hawthorn as a fruit wood, it's in the apple family.

The deeper the bend in the rabbit stick, the longer range you will have.  Close to 90 degrees will sail around 50 meters+.

How do they compare to apache throwing star? Or is one considered a subset of the other?

Recently i found a half jaw bone of a cow. (one intact side without much teeth).
It's surprisingly heavy(dense) and hard of course,slightly curved,not very long (max. 1 feet)
I grinded a bit on the mouth end,so it would slip out my hand without bruising it during throwing.
It made a decent throwing "stick" considering it's weight,shape,and that i just found it,and that it took 3 min of pecking and grinding to make the grip comfortable.
It's profile it elongated oval,so it's quite good.

The only con is that it's short.
If i'll find a horse jaw bone,i'll definitely try to throw that.

Just thought i'd share this idea,so if you see some long jaw bones,remember that it could make a rabbit stick.

jlasud wrote on Apr 1^st, 2013 at 1:54am:


Or you could, you know, kill some Philistines...

Do you think a longer jawbone/stick would get more range, or are you just angling to get it to hit harder?

I just did an image search after your description, because what you described sounded exactly like a hunting boomerang to me. After viewing images, I found that they look like a cross between light weight hunting boomerangs used by the Aboriginals in my area, and the wooden War swords used by the Tjapukai tribe in the north of my state. Both are bigger and heavier than rabbit sticks, and I suppose that if rabbits are the name of the game, then that stands to reason, as both hunting boomerangs and the Tjapukai sword were designed for large game and war. We didn't have rabbits here 200 years ago. 


Mick