Are you ok man?

Personally I just like a wood staff with aluminum flashing at the end, for body contact that metal will get hot and leave nasty burns. Trust me I know first hand, and it is less labor intensive. You can get ever thing you need expect wicking at home depot. Some fininshing nails to hold your flashing in place, a couple of wood screws in through the aluminum and wicking. Your done. Tape it for grip or looks your choose. no glue no shaving anything down, just simple.

Which is why my solid, thick, smooth, long wooden staff is either the worst, or THE BEST, contact staff ever...

I agree, the screws in the dowel will hold it in. I prefer to pre-drill the tube, insert the dowel, drill a smaller guide hole in that, then wrap the wick over that. The hole is then located with an awl or pick. Either way works though. Folding the outer edge of wick in should always be done (it is easy), and white glue to cover the screw caps (making them less heat conductive) and the outer wick edge (slowing fraying, but it must be done several times to get a good layer, and it doesn't last forever. The glue must be allowed to cure for a couple days, and then burned (not practiced with/dropped a bunch of times before the burn). The white glue really will form a resinous layer that is heat resistant. Kevlar stitching also helps, but I usually do that later as the wick starts to degrade, since it is more effort and doesn't do much to prevent early fraying on tube wicks.

I think burns from metal tubes vs burns from metal tape or shielding are sort of a wash, I've gotten both, but thick aluminum staffs don't seem to get quite as hot as thin aluminum staffs or metal tape. Then again, I've gotten much better, so maybe I just don't slide off much anymore. I have sustained two pretty bad burns, one from each - which were much worse than the burns I've gotten from anything aside from zip-poi cables, so I'm not just speculating.

A thin, say 3/4" aluminum tube is much easier to contact than wood, since a wooden staff must be thicker or it will be fragile. Tubes also allow weight to me distributed further towards the ends, making the staff behave physically as if it is longer, ie slowing the speed of rotation while maintaining momentum, which allows contact to be done at slower speeds. Thin diameter is also helpful because for each rotation (roll) of a staff on the body the travel distance will be less, making steves and such easier. I started on wood, and can contact wood, but switching helped me a lot, even now if I go back to one of my old wood staffs.

Depending on the thickness and type of aluminum tube used, they can be light or heavy, and can be actually more durable than wood. I've made staffs for people as solid as 3'4" diameter 3/16" wall 6061 T6 aluminum, which loses some of the end-weighting advantages of thinner tube but is basically indestructible, though 1/8-1/16" wall 6060 T6 seems more than strong enough. Lower grades of aluminum are much cheaper, but are prone to bending, so it is a judgment call. I've also made two staffs that had actual weights in the ends under the wick, making them even more end heavy, allowing for a unreal ability to do slow motion contact, but they have drawbacks as well. I sell most of the staffs I make, and they are all for people moving into contact, so this style of staff is for a pretty specific application. Weighting a staff for contact also forces a spinner into better planes, since the momentum of the staff is more difficult to disturb, but they really take a while to accelerate of change planes, and have a much slower top speed.