How Shinty Camans Are Made

Frequently Asked Questions & Fascinating Facts from Tanera Camans

By Alan MacPherson

Ever wondered what goes into making a shinty caman? Here’s a look behind the scenes at Tanera Camans in Kilmorack, the heart of handmade caman production in Scotland.

🔹 About the Craft

• A shinty caman is traditionally made from ash or hickory wood, both durable and responsive to play.
• Wood is a natural, renewable resource, and each caman we produce reflects that connection to the land.
• Each caman takes around 2.5 hours to make by hand.
• It takes the same amount of work to make a kids’ caman as it does to make an adult one.
• We offer 6 different lengths and 4 position types, which means 15 distinct caman types.

🔹 Our Production at Tanera Camans

• We handcraft around 1,400 camans per year, that’s about 80% of all camans made in Scotland.
• Weekly, we produce between 20–30 camans to keep up with demand.
• Our players’ camans are made in batches of 10. If a team ordered one of each type, we’d need to make 150 sticks!
• A typical team order at the start of the season is around 40 camans.
• Our largest single team order to date was for 100 camans.

🔹 The Raw Numbers

• Each year we:
• Use around 150 litres of glue
• Cut approximately 750 battens of wood
• Produce over 12,000 laminates
• Fill more than 40 one-tonne bags with sawdust

🔹 For the Players

• Shinty is played outdoors, so player camans are produced differently from presentation camans, using different adhesives and wood moisture levels.
• Forwards camans are the most common position we make.
• Shinty is played for 8 months of the year, and we make enough camans annually to meet our share of the market.

The Bigger Picture

• With only about 3,500 registered shinty players in Scotland and around 50 teams, the shinty caman market is a small, niche craft.
• In 2022, we launched Shinty World with hopes of expanding the business and eventually employing another full-time craftsman.
• We’re currently focused on fulfilling this season’s orders, and we hope to start accepting next year’s orders in October.