Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1896 — To Make a Shinny Stick. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

To Make a Shinny Stick.

A bright boy writing to the St Nicholas tells how shinny sticks are made. “I get sticks,” he writes, “as nearly straight as possible and bend them at home. I have a board made like this: There are two pins at one end, at 1 and 2, around which the stick is bent; and at the other end are two rows of holes into which a pin, No. 3, can be put to hold the handle in place. When, the sticks —they should be as green as in place on the board I put the whole thing in the back of,th a

furnace, where tha stick will bake. In about two days the sap is dried out and the stick will keep its curve. “Then I take a belt lace--a leathe? string about half an Inch wide and sixteenth-xis an Inch thick—and bind it dn the short end. If the stick Is split, I bind it first with brass wire and then put the leather binding over the brass.’*

A SHINNY STICK.