The Sawdust Factory Presents:
Kurt's Greenland Paddle Making Page
On this little web offering, I attempt to describe the way I made my seventh Greenland Paddle. My first five paddles were carved from solid 2x4's of pine and cedar, and with them, I experimented a great deal with lengths and widths and loom shapes, and generally tinkered around finding my preferences. And so with things firming up, paddle number six became my first laminated-blank paddle. It turned out so well that I decided to go ahead and put together a really fancy one, which is what you'll see described here. I have settled on kind of an octagonal cross section for the loom, by the way.
|
|
I'm gonna make a paddle that's 81" long, with an 18
1/2" loom, and a 4" maximum blade width. It will be made up of
western red cedar and redwood, and sport 4" basswood tips. I was
going to use rock maple for the tips, but chickened out when I thought
about sanding it and the much softer cedar together. Basswood is
probably a poor choice, but what the heck, I'll fiberglass it and hope
for the best.
I've started with two 73" long strips of cedar for the "spine", and 8 strips of redwood and cedar 27" long for the blades. All are 3/4" x 3/4" I'm using Titebond II carpenter's glue, as usual. Lots of folks will consider this questionable choice of adhesive at best, but I have unbounded faith in the stuff. |
As little a side note, I prefer a shorter paddle with wider blades for shallow water work. And believe me, paddling shallow water is a way of life on the Texas Gulf Coast. Why, I often find myself in mere inches of water! I won't say this is my preference, but it's sure as heck what I gots.
| Here's the resulting build-up, after a couple runs through the thickness planer to even it up. It ended up precisely 3/4" thick. |  |
|
|
Now I've glued a 2" x 70" x 1/4" thick
strip of chocolate colored cedar to each side of the blank. I have taken
care to trim the loom portion down to its 1 1/2" final width, since
removing that bit o' wood now will be easier than doing it later. It
also allows me to instantly line up the glue-coated piece for this step.
I glued one side and applied a few clamps, then took a five minute break so it would tack, and not slide around on me while I line the other side up. Then I coated the other one with glue, removed the clamps, stuck it on, then applied all the clamps and let it cure. |
| Here, I am attaching my end tips with two 1/4" x
3" long dowels for strength. I will also fiberglass the last
12" of each blade tip with 5-oz fine weave cloth. Epoxy will be the
glue of choice here for the bond.
Drilling the holes for the dowels was done by hand, and was surprisingly easy. Just go slowly and trust your eye I used a slightly oversized bit, and stuffed plenty of slightly thickened epoxy in all holes. Always precoat with plenty of unthickened epoxy when bonding bare wood to bare wood like this. Yeah, ask me how I know. |
 |
|
|
Here's how I clamped the end pieces to the paddle blank.
Two clamps hold two 3/4" square pieces of scrap to the end piece,
one to each side, and ditto for the blade. Then one clamp on top, and
another on bottom, on opposing sides, draws everything tightly together
in a predictable and controllable manner.
Hey, if you don't have anything for a clamp to grab onto, then make happen! Worked like a champ. |
| And voila! A completed blank ready for shaping.
I won't go into shaping here, since there's plenty out there on the web covering this already. Besides, I don't realy follow any particular method, except to keep my master paddle very near to hand for eyeballing from. My master paddle, by the way, was one I carved perfectly except for one little thing: I made the loom way too skinny, and so it is too weak to actually paddle with (yes, I've already cracked it). I could always fix it and use it, but instead, I just keep it for decoration, and for patterning new paddles from. |
 |
|
|
Here we are in the final throes of the shaping process. It
takes me about two hours to reach the fine sanding phase.
I like to cut the basic shape on the band saw, the rough in the bevels with a handheld power planer. The good old low-angle block plane takes over to bring it on down to the lines, then on to the 6" variable speed right-angle random orbit sander, and finally, the 5" palm ROS. I shape the edges with a small thumb plane and 80-grit sand paper, and shape the shoulders with a piece of 80-grit. When I'm happy with everything, I chase it all with 150-grit, and call it a day. |
| And here's the finished paddle.
I didn't cover fiberglassing here since we all know how to do that, but I will say the 'glass job only extends from the tip to about the point of the chocolate cedar center lamination. Roughly 15". I start by 'glassing all faces, then trim and sand all edges smooth again, and then 'glass the edges. The 5-oz fine weave cloth conformed perfectly and easily. After filling the weave and sanding everything smooth, I brush a thin coat of epoxy over the whole thing, then wipe it back off with a rag. This results in what looks and feels like a boiled linseed oil finish. |
 |
A note about that kayak-building stand might be in order here. It makes a great paddle-making stand also, if you add a couple little niceties to it first. I have draped a couple 25-pound bags of #8 bird shot to make it perfectly solid (buy your bird shot at gun stores). I cover the ends on the uprights with a towel, and cinch the paddle to the stand with a webbing strap that's otherwise used to strap the yak to the rack when planing and sanding. Finally, about those fancy feet: I used the aperture cut-out from a recent telescope project for them, that's all. They look mighty stylish alright, but I didn't mean for 'em to.
A Few Greenland Paddle Making Links
Chuck Holst's classic page, the definitive instructions most of us use, or at least, started with.
Another great page, but one I never see mentioned. I love this whole site!
