Acquiring a practice caber

This can be a significant challenge.  The other practice weights, you can fake with dumbell weights, 1-inch bolts, galvanized rings, shackles, quick-links and sched 80 PVC.  For stones, drive down to the local riverbed, or even the local Garden Supply store.    Not so with a caber.....here's how I solved it.

I called up a couple of local tree service companies, told them what I am doing, and asked them if they were taking out any straight under-50-foot evergreens in the near future.  I scored on my third phone call.... perfect timing.  They were clearing a lot on a hillside about half an hour away from me, for a new house.  The lot had a mess of medium-small douglas fir on it.

Now at home, one a-a-alllmost-12 foot, probably 60-65 pounder, cut three days ago so it's really wet.  The branches are trimmed off, and it has a nice taper....will make a great womens or novice learning caber.  When it's barked, smoothed and dried out it will probably be about 50-55 pounds...

Waiting for me up the hill at the end of the driveway at the end of the lot that's getting cleared for a new house... when I can get a buddy with a roof rack on his truck.... is a 16 foot,  perfectly straight but for one little kink in the middle...nicely tapered, 85 pounder.  When barked, smoothed and dried that will be about 70 pounds, a good Masters or B-level caber.

Total cost?  Nothing Zero...zilch.  I shook hands with the owner of the company, took 20 of his cards to display at our demo table at  Tartan Day, and I'm stylin'.

Try calling Arborist and tree service companies. You might score yourself a caber, too.

Alan H wrote: I'll....paint it with motor oil and wait for a few weeks.... paint again with motor oil.

Motor oil?  Whose posts have you been reading?  You should have painted the ends with actual paint!!  Once again, class, a tree trunk looses 90% of its moisture through its ends.  Forget to do this step and l assure you that your beautiful new caber will end up with cracks from end to end!  PAINT THE ENDS AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!  Also, l can't imagine how hard it might be to try to pick a greasy caber.

Alan H wrote: ...I think I'll slap some paint on there tonight and hang the motor oil! I'll square the ends tonight and get some paint on them, though I won't be able to bark them until next week.

By jove, l believe you've got it!  Going back to the "90% out the ends" thing.  lf you always keep the ends painted with an enamel paint, your caber will take something like nine times longer to lose the weight that it's going to lose. 

The slower the moisture loss, the fewer and smaller the cracks.

That said, l'm pretty slack about doing this myself.  Maybe it's because l'm lucky enough to have the best caber maker around this area on my committee!

Hi Wally,

I am a newbie here and in throwing but I was wondering if I could ask you a question about Cabers.  How long should you leave them to try out before you start throwing them or using them in a comp.

Thanks
Ray

oh my!  I love this stuff

 

 

sweet!

 

 

     Steve B. suggested using a large PVC pipe and buying two end caps. Filling it up would give whatever weight you want to practice with (cement, water, sand, dirt) plus you could adjust the weight.  Or a large metal pipe might actually give the weight you want by itself.  While it isnt the same as a caber, I believe it would help.