by Rob Stevens
Ever since elementary school wood-working class, I have loved the beauty of wood as well as the feel and smell of working it. For a variety of reasons, always living in rental accommodation being one, I never really had gotten into accumulating the tools, knowledge and techniques needed to fashion wood. Only relatively later, as an adult, had I longed to get into wood-working, with a strong desire to create something both beautiful and functional. Making canoe-paddles was the obvious choice as I had also developed an avid love for outdoor activities. Following the encouraging example of my friend Mike, an Outward Bound instructor, I finally overcame the inertia and began to dig for some information. I found that there isn't much out there in the way of adequately detailed descriptions of how to go about it. Mike provided a few scant too-often-photocopied pages from various sources ostensibly devoted to canoeing rather than making either canoes or paddles. With a some very basic tools I managed to fashion the first effort from a scrap pine board with an eye- like knot in the centre which I picked up at work after some renovations to the old house our office was in.
It's been several years now, and quite a few paddles later, after having offered to write something for Woodcuts, I'm finally getting around to putting these ideas down. A few basic, relatively inexpensive tools are all that are needed to make a paddle. With the creative application of already acquired techniques or some experimenting, you may find yourself hooked on paddle-making too. At least you're likely to end up with a hand- crafted paddle which you'll appreciate knowing the time, energy and skill that went into making it yourself by hand.
To get started you'll need access to a jig or band-saw to cut out the blank, for thinning the blade a jointer or hand-plane, and for shaping the throat and grip, a rasp or surform tool. Sand paper, a cabinet scraper, some oil and varnish will finish it all off.
But first, you have to choose an appropriate (and available) wood you want to work with. Many types will do from soft pine, spruce and cedar to ash, cherry and maple. I've also made paddles from New Guinea walnut (beautiful, rich black and brown tones!), butternut, black ash, American yellow popular, curly maple, bird's eye maple (this being the choice of paddle wood of either masochists or extremely patient types as it requires much time and effort to sand out) and sassafras (which has a mediciney smell). Almost any wood that can be shaped with the tools available to you will suffice, but you also want a paddle that isn't too heavy to be practically useful. Although softwood tends to fray and not wear as well, hardwood is heavier and harder to work therefore requiring more time put in to complete a paddle. Hardwoods are more rigid and provide added "whip" on a hard stroke -which permits one to "feel" the water. Upper body strength and amount of experience canoeing may be the factors leading one to go with a harder, heavier wood.
Select a kiln-dried 5/4 (1 1/4") thick board up to 6 inches wide and around 5 1/2 feet long. Make sure you get a finished length free of an end check. It should be flat grained (plain sawn), straight and free of knots (at least large ones which may interfere with your working of the wood or render the paddle weak). A centred figure or pattern adds to visual beauty.
The traditional blade patterns and dimensions/proportions are illustrated and explained here. There are various possible designs for the grip end. The overall length may vary according to the paddlers height, paddling position (kneeling, sitting, etc.) and upper body strength but should be roughly long enough that your hands are not closer than your elbows when holding the paddle (with both hands in the usual paddling position) over your head parallel to the ground. Usually this will work out to between 54 and 62". A little extra length gives better mechanical advantage though correspondingly takes more energy to draw through the water. Blade length and width are also variable, though keep in mind that a 26 x 6" blade provides about the maximum surface area any mortal will be able to haul through the water for any length of time. I've carved several less than functional "fantasy" designs which I have then painted West Coast Indian designs on purely for display.
Transfer the paddle outline to the wood by tracing an actual paddle or tracing your drawn design using carbon paper. For a more permanent template, copy the pattern onto 1/4" plywood or another suitable, rigid material. Either way be careful to centre the pattern on the board and mark the centre through the length of the shaft and at both the blade and grip ends. Cut out the blank using a jigsaw or bandsaw. Mark a centre thickness line along the full length of the blade to use as a reference for keeping the paddle symmetrical and balanced when thinning and tapering the edges. An out of balance paddle is harder to hold "square" to the water and tends to want to rotate in your hands.
Any of several alternatives will get the blade down to a rough thickness of 3/8" (in the middle). Maybe the easiest is to take multiple passes on a jointer alternating faces while lowering the in-feed table. This method leaves the paddle face roughly symmetrical about the transverse centre while also thickening towards the throat (as you plane towards the paddle shaft which remains 5/4" thick). Alternatively, you can plane to thickness using a hand or hand-held power plane. It's even been suggested that this thinning could be done with a router (which I don't personally have) or by re-sawing the board to thickness using a bandsaw (perhaps a none too precise way to go about it). You want the blade faces parallel and close to final thickness near the throat (place where the lower hand grips the paddle). Leave added thickness for approximately 6" at the top end of the blade to give it strength and to allow you to shape the throat. The blade should thicken along the centre line (now machined off) toward the throat. Once the blade is down to rough thickness, use any combination of a hand-plane, rasp, draw-knife, spoke-shave or surform to taper the blade outwards towards the edges (to about 1/8" for hardwoods), and to shape the throat in an even taper or a spine (almost any length down the centre line) with either a concave or convex cross-section thinning towards the edges (see throat diagrams).
These same tools used in shaping the throat are also used to shape the shaft, grip and neck (combining to form the butt or handle). I prefer to leave some "squareness" (ie. narrow flat strips parallel to the long axis) in the shaft as I find the flat surface gives more "feel" and makes it easier to hold the paddle "square" ie. prevent rotation. The shape of the grip and neck also affect the "feel" while paddling, a flatter neck and squared grip providing more surface area for better twisting leverage. However, some people prefer a more rounded shaft, neck and grip.
For final smoothing (especially of hardwoods), I scrape the blade face with a cabinet scraper then sand through several grades of paper. Wet to raise the grain, let dry and then final sand with fine grit paper. For paddles of open grained wood, you may want to fill the grain to prevent waterlogging. You may want to dip the blade tip in oil to help prevent splitting or waterlogging. I prefer to oil my paddles completely with Danish oil (alternatively "boiled" linseed or Tung oil) slightly diluted (10%) with spirits or thinner, then a coat of undiluted oil (rubbing out following the directions on the can), and finally, with several coats of high quality, ultra-violet resistant spar-varnish. Wet-sand with 400 or 600 grit paper between coats of varnish to give the gloss finish "teeth" allowing the next coat to better adhere. Some paddling purists leave the grip and/or throat unvarnished, thereby having to oil it several times per day (!) while canoeing to keep it waterproof! Depending on the oil used, they may have to sleep with their paddles or risk being visited by nocturnal friends eg. porcupines looking for salty wood to gnaw.
A few last words regarding paddle care. Always hang a blank or paddle in a cool, dry place rather than laying it flat or leaning against a wall. This is to prevent warping.
Happy paddle-making! Hey, this may even provide the incentive to enjoy some time out on the water, or even building your own canoe (like I'm trying to get to!).