Paddle Making?

Well, yes - and more.

I've really got some juggling going on in the shop.  I have 12 students in my class this session and the attendance rate is very high - I haven't had less than 10 students show up for any one class.  You will note, however, that I haven't posted about the class much until now.  Oh, yeah, I've posted about paddle making resources, some basics about picking good hand tools and lumber, but not about what's going on in the class.

The reason?

I've been too busy to pick up the camera - until I made a concerted effort today.  Consider the fact that in the class I have the following:

One student finishing his canoe (by special arrangement...)
Two students making oars
Three students building double-bladed paddles
Six students crafting single-bladed paddles

Let's just say it is a hopping place.  The oar makers seem to be having the greatest progress.  They've marked out the patterns, roughed the blades and shafts of the oars using the bandsaw, and were re-marking them with the outlines of the blades today.

My canoe-building student and I stayed late last week to fiberglass the outside of his hull, and this week he got another coat of epoxy on it.  We were hoping to get a second "hot coat" on, but the temperatures were cool and wouldn't co-operate.

Two of the three students making double-bladed paddles are making laminated blades.  They seemed to be having a fair amount of difficulty today re-sawing their thin pieces to laminate together.  I think a review of their methods may be in order for next week.  The other student is going to have sawn blades and had prepared the shaft and blade stock to glue together.

Single-bladed paddle makers are making good progress as well.  Two are making "one-board" paddles, but with some customization.  One will have a contrasting tip and grips, while the other will have contrasting tips, grips and blade edges.  The blade edge is going to be interesting because this student wants the edge to follow the contour of the blade.  To deal with this, she's cut a template from plywood so that we can use a router with a pattern bit to make smooth mating curves that we can glue together.  On top of the cosmetic appeal of these tips, they also serve a functional purpose.  The wood is hard, and the grain direction (for the tips) is perpendicular to the grain of the blades.  This helps to avoid splitting of the blade tips.

The contrasting tips are being made with a mortise and tenon arrangement for strength.  The tenon is easily made on the table saw with a dado head.  The ends of the tenon are then cut short with a hand-saw.  The mating mortise was created by drilling and chiseling out the material.  We could have done this several ways.  If we had a small enough mortising bit, we could have used that.  Alternatively, the router table could have been employed to create the mortise using an up-cut bit.  We could have also used a spline and dadoed both parts.  Many ways to approach this, really.

The other four students are working with "glued-up" paddles consisting of a center shaft with glued-on blades and grips.  In one case (at least at the moment) we also have a contrasting tip as well.   On the glued-up paddle below, you will note that there are two contrasting strips of wood on the blade - these are "skids" that are taped to the blades with carpet tape.   The surface of the strips is co-planar to the surface of the shaft and provide a stable base for machining operations on both the table saw and the band saw.

Perhaps my luck is changing...

Well, at least I hope so. I don't know exactly what it was, but I seem to have been followed last week by either a black cloud or Murphy (yeah, that Murphy) himself. Everything I came in contact with seemed to have turned to uh... yeah, that.

Late in the week, my luck seemed to have turned. I was looking at a forum that I follow and one of the members who is a boat-builder (among other things) who had some lofting and patterns for a traditional lapstrake canoe designed by R.D. "Pete" Culler, a well known designer and builder of classic wooden boats, that he was looking to give away. As this kind gentleman and I both had Monday off, I drove down to his shop on Long Island to pick up these items. We had a nice visit that was all too short, really. He'd worked doing repair work at various yards in the area and at the Apprenticeshop up on Rockland, Maine. He was even kind enough to have gone to the local library and made copies about the boat from John Burke's book about Culler's boats. That's above and beyond, if you ask me.

Detail From the Lofting

Lofting and Patterns

Exerpt from Book
(Shows 13' version of canoe)

I've been looking forward to finding a boat that would be good for teaching another boat-building class. Perhaps this will be a good choice. Time will tell.

Today, I was in my office when one of my co-workers came in and told me to follow him. We went through the building to the shipping dock. He then grabbed his coat and we headed outside. (???) We went to his pickup truck and he dropped the gate. "I've got a few things for ya." (??? - again) In the truck were three planes - a Sergant smothing plane, a Stanley Bailey pattern #5 bench plane and a wood-soled plane of unknown origin. Also were two LARGE wooden clamps - those things are about 18-20" - a very large clamp. The planes need a bit of cleaning, sharpening and lubrication and but for the repair of one handle, they're in very good shape. Quite a treat!


Here's to hoping that my luck has actually changed!

Tech-Tip Tuesday : Pattern Stock

When building a strip canoe, it's necessary to make patterns which are the cross-sectional shape of the canoe. Over time, I've seen a wide variety of materials used for this task. I've seen rigid foam (don't ask me how they did it...), Plywood (of various ilks...), MDF, glued up pine, and chip-board. They all have their ups and downs.

Usually, you are looking for a consistent material with no voids that is flat and thick enough for your purposes - 1/2" to 5/8" thick is usually fine. You want something inexpensive and easy to bevel. It should also resist warp and hold staples well. In the case of my students, I'm usually looking for an additional feature - light weight. (We move our forms in and out of the shop at every class!) While the pine isn't bad if you alternate the grain direction to avoid warping, I tend to prefere sheet goods for cost and ease of use.

Personally, I prefer plywood underlayment with patched voids. It's inexpensive and does the job well. If I wasn't lifting the boat and forms, I'd go for MDF as it's cheaper and very stable, although heavy. Chip-board is about the worst material I've used. It doesn't machine well, has random voids and it doesn't hold a staple well for some reason. One fellow I know prefers MDO for the nice paper face it has so that he can lay out patterns with ease. Unfortunately, it's a bit on the pricey side.

When choosing materials, I think it's very important to talk to the people at your local lumberyard. There are a wide variety of sheet goods out there - some are very similar in function, but can vary widely in price. Very often, they can point you in the direction of a less-expensive substitute if you tell them what you're doing with it.