Stop hedging, Bob, how much would it cost?
Fair comment, but do I have to be a bit flexible on this. The cost of the best quality materials can vary considerably. This week, I might be able to buy good blackthorn shanks for n pounds. Then next week, along comes a customer who wants a blackthorn stick, but all the shanks from that batch are too short for this particular job, so I end up paying 4n pounds plus postage for a one-off. That’s a big difference. Both rams’ horn and buffalo horn can be very difficult to obtain at any price and the quality can be very variable. A “difficult” ram’s horn can take me a couple of weeks longer to work than an ideally-shaped one, and this all needs to be taken into account. I can give a rough indication, but please bear in mind these are “ball park” figures only and are subject to variation according to the current availability & cost of materials and the amount of work involved. The fact is that I would never be able to charge enough to repay me for the time and effort I put into making a sti
