Headed for the wall -My complete newb status exposed….:)

I finally got the paddles completed and was psyched to see Bill’s reaction when he saw them. The whole famn damily went to Lime Rock Park to see Bill race over Labor Day weekend. He was busy racing (and then frantically searching out clutch parts) for most of Saturday. I anxiously awaited his seeing the paddles. The moment arrived Saturday night.

I was really happy with how pleased he was when he 1st saw them. Then he said “You know you made these backwards?” DOH! So much for all my research…..thing is I still swear I’ve seen folks using the paddles with the blade angled toward you. We still tested the paddle on Sunday and while it does still paddle nice. It’s not only backwards but definitely heavier than it needs to be. Back to the drawing board….the next one he gets will be oriented correctly and a lot lighter.

At least this one looks pretty enough for the wall. I still want you to christen it at Thousand Peaks before it gets hung up though Bill.

Anyway….the process is still good, so I thought I’d share it.

I started with 1/4″ x 1-1/4″ cedar strips. The form for the bending is just a couple of pieces of 3/4″ MDF glued together and cut at 12 degrees on the bandsaw.

I cut a space for blade splines in one of the strips. I varied the location of that strip on each paddle. It changes how the paddle is placed in relation to the shaft.

The shaft glued up and on the form.

The blade splines in place

Set up and ready for the rest of the blade

There is a paddle blade in there somewhere.

The handle gets glued up.

I shaped the shaft using my Grandfathers drawknife….pretty cool to think about him doing similar work.

Blade #1…..whoa….this things a war club!

Starting to shape the handle

I decided to get a little creative and include a Mako inlay into the handle

Shaping the blade

Mako pre-finish

And post

Night Ops….time is of the essence

Glue up and shaping of the side strips.

The drawknife can take out lots of wood.

or shave finely….great old tool.

Sanding….sanding….sanding

We skip ahead here a little. I didn’t document the process as much for the second one….basically much of the same.

Placing the Mako in the cut out. The handle and shaft of #2 are much more refined. I only used 5 laminations for the shaft instead of six to cut weight.

I bookmatched the front and rear (or was that rear and front?) blade panels.

I had to steam bend the compound curve of the edge of the second blade to get it to work. Here is the blade wrapped in plastic since I used it as the form.

My steamer…the wife was not impressed.

Back and front….damn I wish I had gotten it right…:)

1st coat of epoxy

The finished photos #1 is on the left. #1 ended up being a war club. I’ll use it for a bit since its all I’ve got. It will be great for the workout. Kind of funny how I mistakenly incorporated a dihedral into the blade by accident. #2 would have been sweet it it wasn’t for the whole backward thing.

I scalloped what I thought was the front.

For all my frustration of screwing them up I’m still happy with them. Now that I know better the next ones will improve immensely. Bill gets 1st dibs on the next one. Actually he gets the one after the next one. I’m building a paddle to be auctioned off for charity, Save the Children. A woodworking forum, Lumberjocks, I belong to is putting it all together. I’ll blog more about it later but this one will be an “art” paddle. Complex inlays, exotic woods, and if we can work out the logistics a small painting by Rick Romano . I should start blogging its construction in a couple of weeks.