Paddle #3 with detailed building story

I lived in Hawaii from March-June of 2006. It was during this time while helping a friend with a remodel on the island of Oahu when I realized that I was not exactly where I wanted to be in life. I decide that it was time to pursue something that I had always dreamt about: to become a skilled woodworker. Inspired by the outrigger paddlers I would see all around the island, I ordered a book that would teach me how to create paddles and get me started toward a career as a woodworker. Between remodeling and surf sessions I would study the book in hopes of making a portfolio of notable work.

Returning to my one car garage woodshop on the mainland in late June, I began collecting the necessary tools that were described in the book. I aquired flat- and curved-sole spokeshaves, cabinet scrapers, calipers, dividers, plastic French curves, a high quality square and measuring tools. I also followed the directions in the book to make flat and French curve sanding blocks made of multiple layers of plywood laminated together and cork glued to the surface, with wedges to hold in the sand paper.

The name of the book is Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own by Graham Warren and David Gidmark. The authors have a short section on the bent shaft which functions in adding power to the stroke and is the design of choice for outrigger paddlers. In it they describe how to obtain a bend in the shaft by laminating thin strips together with glue clamped to a form. They mention the possibility of steam bending, however do not go into it. I felt that a one piece shaft would be much more appealing. I had spoken to my friend Ben Carson, a tugboat engineer in Chesapeake, Virginia, at a wedding in Chicago one afternoon about steam bending. Since he made it sound so easy I decided to give it a try. I looked on the internet and found some plans that a boat builder from Maine had drawn up. It showed a heat source, a gas can for the water, a radiator hose to connect the water can to the pvc pipe that held the wood, and a vent hole for the steam to escape. I adapted these plans to construct the steam bender in photo z. The only variance from the Maine boat builders plans was that I used a pressure cooker that I drilled a hole in the top of and added a piece of pipe in to clamp the radiator hose to. The plans were also very helpful in that they gave general dimensions of how far different woods can be bent and for how long to steam: about 1 hour per inch of thickness.

After finding a fine piece of ash with contained straight grain, I milled it to a square 1 3/16” on my table saw.

Next I constructed a form from a pine 4×4 by measuring the angle on a paddle that I borrowed from my cousin Chris. I added a few degrees for spring-back after steaming and cut the angle with a power hand-saw. Then I added some 3”x3” stops on the side of the form to butt the side of the shaft up against and pounded a nail at the end of the form opposite the angle to butt the shaft end against, leaving enough room for the bend to be in the right spot to work with.

With my steam bender on the burner and ready to heat I practiced removing the wood from the pipe and placing it on the form. I had all of my clamps at about the right size where they would need only minimal adjustment once on the form and shaft. I placed them where they were ready to grab and ran through my motions a few times. With everything set I fired up the burner and steamed away for about an hour and a half. I was not sure if there would be enough water, but luckily my pressure cooker holds over a gallon and that was more than enough. The steaming and bending went off without a hitch. I had only a minimal twist that was barely noticeable. Photo xy shows the shaft clamped to the form.

The next step was to create the blank. I used epoxy to glue the pieces of maple and walnut that I had already laminated together and cut to use as blade halfs.

Once the epoxy had dried I unclamped the blank and used the power hand plane and sander to get the bottom of the blade flat.

Next I put on 8-siding guidelines for the shaft to be rounded at the top and elliptical in the bottom above the blade in the throat area to better fit the human hand. These guidelines were achieved by drawing a square with sides equal to the thickness of the shaft then penciling precise diagonals to the inside of the drawn square. Using the dividers I measured the distance from the intersection of the diagonals to the edge of the square and locked the dividers with this measurement. From the measurement held in the dividers I drew eight lines down the upper shaft measured from the edge of the shaft, two on each side that would guide me in removing the corners with the spokeshave. For the throat I had to guess at how thick the front, back and sides should be for a good elliptical shape that would comfortably fit a human hand. I played with this until it looked right.

I then traced the outline of the paddle that I had borrowed and retraced that onto the blank. The canoe paddle building book came with templates that I used for the grip profile and outline, as well as the blade taper and throat template. Once all of these lines were drawn I used the jig saw to cut ¼” outside of the line for the general paddle shape.

Now the real fun began: using the spokeshave to shape the paddle. From here I started with the blade and just went for it slowly, taking time to count strokes working from the sides of the blade toward the inside. It was a long process that I found very satisfying and even relaxing.

After the blade I worked on the grip. I trimmed off the excess length of shaft and used that to make a cylindrical grip that I would stick on top of the shaft. I eventually tapered the top of the shaft to a diameter half that of the shaft, starting from about 2” down from the top. I drilled a hole in the grip before I shaped it that would fit tightly on this new diameter and glued that on later with epoxy.

Leaving the shaft shaping for last I was able to keep the piece clamped in my work table up until that point. Shaping the shaft was the easiest part. With the spokeshave it turned from four sides to eight sides then to sixteen sides. I was careful to have a nice blend from round at the top to elliptical at the bottom. Once I had the shaft to sixteen sides I used a piece of cut belt sander sand paper around the shaft in a shoe-shining motion to achieve a rounded surface.

All that was left was to perfect things using the French curve sanding block I had made and course grit sand paper to remove any other imperfections in the shape.

I finish sanded everything then put about seven coats of boiled linseed oil to seal out the water.

-- Tim Nuanes