Custom Laminated Canoe Paddle

Art Mulder

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London, Ontario
(this is not flat by any stretch, but where else would I post it?)


Finished Shot First:

A little over four years ago I decided to try my hand at making canoe paddles. It was a lot of fun, and surprising less difficult than I had anticipated, and I kept on making paddles until I had made one (or more) for each of my kids, and one for a friend, and few experiments... Probably 8 or so paddles by the time I stopped.

Recently, partly on a whim, I decided to make myself another paddle. I was in the midst of planning a backcountry canoe trip, which undoubtedly influenced me a fair bit. Over the course of four days, working part-time only, I set about designing, making, and documenting another paddle build.

You can build a paddle out of one solid piece of wood. I prefer to make my paddles by laminating strips of lumber together. This saves on wood and allows me to mix and match species together to make a thing of beauty. It does complicate the build significantly, but I really like the results.



If you prefer, here is a Video build:



For reference material, I used the book "Canoecraft" by Ted Moores. It's mostly about building a cedar strip canoe, but it does contain an excellent chapter on paddle building. As well I had watched various youtube videos and found other online articles.

I started with a thin sheet of plywood to make the pattern. On this I made a centerline, and then pulled out the old pattern that I had used for my ottertail-style paddles and traced that on the pattern.

I held up my old paddle (#1 in the photo) to see how much longer I could make the blade, and I decided that I would make my new ottertail blade about three inches taller. Then I used the old pattern (#2) to roughly mark out the top and bottom portions of the pattern. I also pulled out some large french curves that I have to finesse and adjust the top and bottom of the paddle into a pleasing curve (#2, #3), using a straight edge to connect the curves.



It is recommended that you START with a paddle blank where the shaft is 1.25" square, and then during the build process you will machine that down to about a circle a bit over 1" in diameter (depending on your preferences).

Therefore, I find it best to rip all my rough stock down to 1.25" in thickness, though the widths can vary. In this way the entire paddle blank is the same thickness which makes the machining MUCH easier.




For this paddle I chose to use a thin strip of teak right up the center of the shaft, all the way from tip to grip. I've never done that before, but there is no reason why it should not work. In my case this decision was kind of forced on me based on what stock I had on hand -- I did not have any suitable 1.25" thick lumber.

Surrounding the Teak are two pieces of Hard Maple, and together that makes up the shaft. Beside that is a lamination Teak, Padauk, Teak -- the dark red Padauk contrasts beautifully with the brown Teak. Then a wider piece of Maple, and finally a piece of Black Cherry. This same arrangement is mirrored on both sides of the shaft. I love putting together contrasting woods like this, as I think the results can be stunning.



I was NOT prepared for how stressful the glue up turned out to be.

I've never made a paddle where the shaft was also laminated. So on previous paddles I can focus on clamping the grip, and get it all situated correctly, and then turn my attention to working on the blade. But in this case, because the shaft is also laminated, I needed to get it ALL done at the same time, and quickly, and of course it needed a LOT of clamps to ensure that the entire paddle -- grip, shaft, and blade, was fully and snugly clamped along it's entire length.



The next step is to strike a centerline down the exact middle of the paddle blank.
I then moved on to tracing the blade pattern onto the paddle blank. One tip that I picked up from a video that I found online from Nick Offerman (well known actor who is also a well known woodworker) is to drill a hole along the center line of your paddle pattern. This makes it much easier to line it up on your paddle blank, by siting the blank centerline through those holes.

I also have a pattern for the grip, but that is not shown here.



I then took the paddle blank to the bandsaw and cut out the shape of the paddle.

Actually, to be completely honest, I took the bandsaw and first moved it to as near the center of my shop as I can. That is because while cutting out the paddle, you are required to swing this long (65" in my case) paddle blank around, to make all the end cuts. You could use a jigsaw for this, and maybe that would be easier, I've never tried that, simply because I have a bandsaw. Maybe next time...



…CONTINUED…
 
The next step is to strike a centerline down the SIDE of the paddle blank. On the blade I also strike a line 1/8" on either side of the center line. Those lines are the ones that we will work towards to give us a final blade thickness of about 1/4" (6mm)

I next went back to the bandsaw and sliced off the waste pieces of each side of the blade. I stayed outside those two lines that I just marked 1/8" on either side of center. This takes off almost a full half inch of stock from either side of the blade, which makes later shaping much easier.

Some people leave a raised spine on the center of their paddle blades, which would NOT work with this method. I've always made my blades to be more flat, and it works for me.



I then knocked off some of the corners from the shaft, and notched out a bit of the hand grip below the grip end of the paddle.



The rest of my paddle shaping involves a lot of handwork. I primarily use the block plane from now on. I also use my small stationary belt sander a lot. Some people use spokeshaves for some of this shaping.

It's a good workout

I have only included a few photos. But this is a fairly lengthy process. You can only plane one half of one side of the blade at a time. Then you need to reposition and reclamp the blade to plane the other half, and then the other side, and so on.





There is a lot of checking and re-checking. In this photo you can see where I have scribbled in pencil on the blade to indicate an area where I need to plane down a high spot.



After I was satisfied with the blade, I moved on to working on the shaft.

I made use of a rather large roundover bit that I had recently acquired for my router. This gave a big headstart on rounding over the edges of the shaft. I probably didn't even need to use the bandsaw to turn it into an octagon a few steps back.



Then I used the block plane to round the shaft. This step is surprisingly quick. It only takes me about 30-40 minutes to have a paddle shaft that is really quite circular. Trust your sense of touch. Slide your hands around and your fingers will tell you where there are ridges that need to be smoothed, or rough areas. Use your eye to site along the length to see where it needs more work to be more circular. It goes quickly.

(This is a bit easier to envision if you watch the youtube video, linked above.)



For shaping of the hand grip on the end of the paddle I stand up my stationary belt sander and use that to sand the inside curves. There is a lot of swinging of the paddle left and right so you need clearance around you! I also sand the top also. There is a lot of stopping and testing to see how it feels in my hand. This step is a tough one, because it is so subjective. After almost 10 paddles I think I'm finally starting to get acceptable results here. Practise is required!



And then I finally pull out the random-orbit sander to go over the entire paddle, trying to make it smooth as silk -- especially around the grip and the lower part of the shaft, where my hands will be when I use the paddle.



For finishing I first drill a tiny hole in the top of the grip, and insert a small eyelet so that I can hang the paddle from the ceiling.

This allows me to finish all sides of the paddle at once. I use a spar urethane to finish my paddles. I wipe it on with a rag, as it really doesn't take much and it seems silly to get a brush wet for this and then have to clean out the brush and so on. After it dries I give it a light sanding and then repeat as many times as needed, usually four to seven light coats.



…CONTINUED…
 
Wow Art that is a very nice looking paddle, I hope you get many years of use out of it!

Dunno why, but that is something that I've always wanted to make, I have no use for it, here in downtown Tokyo, but it is very cool!

Cheers!
 
Stu, you could just make yourself a 3/4 size one to hang on the wall as a representation of your heritage.
Or if you make the tip a "bit" wider you've got yourself a Pizza Peel. ;)
 
Nice work on the paddle and the video, you've been a busy guy. I've been checking out all the projects on your website. :thumb:

Thanks, Darren! To me, the writing+documenting is just another part of the creative process that I like, so I've been writing online about my woodworking pretty much since the late 90s. But I did try to ramp things up on my website + youtube about 3 years ago.
 
... almost nothing, Darren! :eek:

It's one of those things that seems so neat beforehand. But once you get it, you're scratching your head about when you really NEED it. Best figure out if you need it before you get it.

Also, I have one of the early models that has the 24v spindle which is really gutless for cutting wood. They switched to shipping them with a palm router soon after I got mine, and I've seen from a few guys online that that makes a big difference.

I used it at Christmas to make a BB-8 plaque for my nephew. Works great at 1/8" deep inlay on plywood:
IMG_6222.jpg

I did use it on my perpetual calendar -- worked fine there:

I also used it when carving the nail+gears sign -- which is meaningless to anyone who does not listen to the "Hello Internet" podcast.
Carving plastic works quite well, but it still was a 30-40 minute job to carve this sign
(only allowed one video link, so I can't put the youtube link here, so here's a static image)


Oh yeah, I also carved my website logo with it, which is in the closing credits of all my videos for the past year or so.
 
Really beautiful work and great tutorial. This is something I've thought I'd like to try for a long time. I'll be filling this one away for future reference.
 
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