Couple of paddles a friend and I are fabricating. The left one is his. It is maple with walnut strips and is almost finished shaping, then final sanding, staining and varnishing. Mine is on the right; cherry outsides, walnut strips and ash through the centre. It is not as far along as my friends; only the initial gluing and shape cutting has been done. It still needs to go on a diet. Note the walnut my friend turned for my handle under the shaft of my paddle.
Next step: Centre line & paint. Before painting the blade edge black, it was scribed with a device that scratches a line to denote the middle of the blade. A little hard to tell in this pic but the shaft has been router-ed from square to round. Eventually I will thin out the two sides to make the shaft oblong in shape.
The excess paint has been removed revealing a centre-line of black which will give me a guideline of where the mid point of the thickness of the blade is so that it can be evenly shaped. Also, the blade portion has been run through a thickness planer to take out the unevenness of the various wood strips.
Hey Jon, thanks. I bought a pair of paddles from a somewhat famous local guy here in Ontario; Ray Kettlewell. He told me what to use to refinish the paddles but alas, I didn't write it down and he sold his business last year. I'll email the guy that bought out his business. I'm going to need to know myself soon.
How do you pare them down. Plane? Does the different wood species cause any issue with expansion or contraction of the wood? Lastly are the different species just edge glued or are there biscuits or dowels? The reason I am asking is that the oars I need to redo are separating at the individual pieces and I am probably looking at a rebuild.
Thanks WS. Jon, a portable electric planer set on 1/16" is used, then dialed down to 1/64" for finer tuning. After that a belt sander is used, then a palm sander. The wood is glued with biscuits, but my buddy says glue alone is just fine as it will break on the wood, not the joint.
Very nice. I will ask around to see if I can find out what type of finish that would work. Just think out loud, same finish used for wooden boats? but, maybe you don't want that high a gloss. But just neat.
I made a few paddles in HS shop class, I was there 3 hours a day since they didn't have many other classes left for me to take my senior year. The first one I did was just one big piece of oak then I started experimenting with maple glue-ups and finally settled on ash glue-ups. I was going mostly for functionality and toward that end I "recreated" some of my favorite designs including a bent paddle I made for a friend. I didn't actually bend it I just cut the angle into the center shaft and glued up the blade and handle. Our shop was a bit limited so I ended up free-handing a lot of the rough material removal on a big bandsaw and took the blade down with a big belt sander and 36 grit. For finishing I always just used boiled linseed oil and put another coat on after each seasons use. They held up really well as long as they didn't get abused like summer camp paddles! Those need to have the lower 1/3 of the blade 'glassed up to have any hope of survival. I really like the look and contrast of the darker woods in your designs so far. Keep up the good work!
I'm thinking of painting the bottom 1/2" of the blade with epoxy and coating with silica sand; maybe with 4 coats. I was told it's better to push off rocks and such with the blade than the handle. Thanks for the compliment.
Some more initial shaping with a portable planer, set at 1/16”. Fine tuning is done with the planer dialed down to 1/64". Works very fast.
That looks great. Nice pictures. What is the difference between the rounded profile and yours that is a bit squared off. Off topic question. How did you insulate your walls? Are there studs with batts between them? I looks pretty air tight. I need to do something like that in my basement that stands at 50 degrees right now. Not fun to work down there.
My other paddle has a blade that is about four and a half inches wide and two feet long. Great for moving a lot of water quietly on the lake, but grinds the bottom on most rivers. So I'm making a beaver tail. It has the same square area as the quill, but with a shallower draft. Jon, that's my friends basement. I think it's R20 battery insulation covered with poly vapour barrier. I just converted my garage into an apartment. I got a local contractor to spray foam with two pound foam. I wouldn't go any other way; spray foam creates its own vapour barrier and if done right there are no air leaks.
