Time to make a new paddle

[Patrick Corry]

I have made four paddles, two in solid cherry (one piece) and two from laminated bits and pieces. The laminated paddles, while pleasurable to use, do not appeal to me aesthetically. I think they look a bit out of place in my traditionally built wood/canvas canoes. For fun I picked up a piece of American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) at a specialty wood supplier near me (https://www.hearnehardwoods.com/). It has very striking figure when quartersawn, displaying medullary rays when sawn this way.

The paddle will have a narrow (5.5") blade, and a grip I have come to like similar to the grip on my Sassafras paddle. Here's my beginning effort so far. Here you will see the growth rings vertical with the medullary rays as nearly horizontal lines:

The sawn faces display the medullary ray figure:
Joining the shaft lines to the blade in a fair curve using a Keuffel & Esser #6 irregular French curve. It belonged to my canoeing mentor- an engineer at Boeing Vertol. The square lines /marks ensure symmetry on both sides of the shaft.


The idea was to slightly reduce the throat dimension at the top of the blade on a paddle whose profile I favor otherwise.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Platanus occidentalis

medullary rays

Keuffel & Esser #6 irregular French curve

Live and learn. I mean it, and want to prolong both as long as possible. I love your sense of aesthetics, Patrick, and am looking forward to this project!

 

[Patrick Corry]

From The Wood Database (https://www.wood-database.com/) comparative weights (dried) of wood choices for paddles :

American Sycamore: 34# per cubic foot
Ash: 42#
Cherry: 35#
Sassafras: 31#
Birch: 38#-46# depending on species
Spruce: 25#-28# " " "
Maple: 30#-38# " " "
White Oak: 47# (not really suitable, but for this comparison it has similarly distinctive medullary rays when quartersawn)

 

[Bob B.]

Patrick,

Good on ya for building with Sycamore, one of my favorite woods … quarter sawn no less - boy howdy can’t wait to this thread develop!!

I had a long bow a decade and a bit ago … spalted sycamore back and belly with boo cores. Beautiful and very pleasant to shoot.

how long will the throat and blade be? Will you oil, varnish … how will you finish the paddle.

I am excited to see how this turns out.

Bob.

 

[Cruiser]

Always enjoy watching other folks build, it's a chance to appreciate and learn .... I really like that grain pattern.

I have the same attraction to a one piece, but really haven't taken that plunge yet, I suspect that is because I haven't ran across a nice piece of wood like that that screams "carve me'. If you have access to a hand power planer, it will make the initial hogging and shaping a whole bunch easier (just a thought).


Brian

 

[ppine]

Great idea. I have made a few paddles. For river paddling it is good to use the dense hardwoods. My woodworker friend glues up some laminated blanks for me. My best paddle has white ash down the middle with altering layers of black walnut and mahogany. I have used this paddle for 30 years and it has stood up to rocks. I have lost it a couple of times in capsizes, but always found it in eddys down stream.
Every paddler should make a couple of paddles.

 

[Patrick Corry]

A little progress:

I used a pal's nice bandsaw to cut out the paddle shape

I then refined the profile with a home made disc sander on my table saw- I cut a 5/8" cabinet grade plywood disc, drilled a 5/8" arbor hole in the center, then affixed a 10" 80grit pressure sensitive adhesive backed sanding disc. Worked like a charm and only cost me $9 bucks!

The finished blank

Rough grip shaping. To remove the bulk of the material I crosscut the waste roughly, chiseled off the wood, then rough rasped the shape

I'm trying the same removal technique for the blade- I intensely dislike the screaming noise of my electric planer. My neighbors do also!

I think the most important reference lines are the center marks at top of grip and bottom of blade, and the lateral centerline around the entire paddle blank once band-sawed. With these you can always re-center your piece as the shaping progresses- to a point- then your 'eye' has to take over in determining fair curves where blade meets shaft, shaft meets grip, etc. It's a fun process, each time attempting to make the paddle a bit lighter and test the limits of durability and eye appeal!

More to come,

 

[JohnSand]

I've made a couple of oars, no paddles yet. I'm enjoying this thread.

 

[lowangle al]

That's a really nice looking piece of wood Patrick, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Great idea on the table saw sander too.

 

[Cruiser]

That wood is awesome ...

 

[ppine]

I made a point to only use hand tools for paddles. Actually the tools used are unimportant.
What matters is that building a paddle, and then using it is a very rewarding experience.
Right up there with a good saddle, a good w/c canvas canoe, Duluth packs and canvas tents.

 

[Patrick Corry]

Progress. The effort was interrupted by a trip north to Vermont to visit my son and his family, but I'm back at it.

Rough blade shaping with my most aggressive rasp. A note here; leaving the shaft square until both blade and grip are fully shaped allows the maker to firmly clamp the paddle to a bench so that two hands can be used to grasp tools. I also used a 1x3 clamped to the bench (shown here at lower left) to limit the travel of the blade while shaping. I put a shim under the blade to allow rasp strokes to pass over the 1x3 when necessary.


Taking shape:

Transition to the shaft begins:


Grip is now largely shaped; lots of hand work with multiple rasps. The grain of the wood is really interesting here.


Now mostly shaped, the remaining work involves smoothing the rasp marks, thinning the blade, and refining the shaft. I am using an aggressively sharpened card scraper for all with the exception of the upper grip. This will remove nearly all the tool marks and still remove more material, and faster than sanding.

 

[lowangle al]

Looking good Patrick. How long did you make it, and how long is the blade?

 

[Boatman53]

That is going to be one beautiful paddle.
Jim

 

[memaquay]

First time I have seen sycamore, that's a very distinctive and beautiful wood. That's a whole lot of rasping, the sycamore must be rasp friendly?

 

[Patrick Corry]

Addendum:

Here's the typical result of card scraping. Way faster than sanding with a belt sander, and leaves a pretty smooth finish. It's great for removing tool marks prior to sanding.


And.... here's some "not paddle". This paddle making is easy- just remove everything that's "not a paddle".

 

[ppine]

Alternatively, one can take a tip from the commercial paddle builders and glue up strips in a blank to make a paddle.
I like tough hardwoods for rivers like white ash, black walnut and mahogany because they can stand up to rocks.

 

[Patrick Corry]

Al, the blade is 5 3/8" at the widest point, and 25-26" long depending on where you consider the blade to end. Length is 59". I typically make paddles 60" and am comfortable with them, but chose to experiment by making this one just a bit shorter.

Some comparison to the previous blade and grip. I used the same pattern for the cherry blade, but left the 'corners' on just for kicks. It paddles well and is good in underwater recovery.


Grip is largely the same, subject to the whim of my shaping 'eye' this time. It's 1' shorter. The camera perspective gives the impression that the new grip is larger, but that's an illusion- it's nearly an exact copy.

 

[Patrick Corry]

the sycamore must be rasp friendly?

Yes, it's really the best way to remove material without creating surface gouges, at least with this quarter sawn wood. Perhaps other types of cut; flat sawn, rift sawn, would be more plane friendly but using the plane on this paddle was effective only at the start of removal. It left significant gouges when encountering oddly aligned grain (or perhaps my plane iron is too dull for this wood!). Of note too is that the card scraper left a pretty nice surface regardless of grain direction.

I think I may use some throw-away wood like lumberyard spruce to experiment with band sawing off the excess blade material. Once I know how that process can work it would speed up paddle making.

 

[Bob B.]

Man I love Sycamore but that paddle … WOW!!