Greenland Paddle part 2

Okay, I didn't get around to going for a paddle today, I had some stuff to do for uni and for a job application, so once I finished that I figured I'd go out to the shed and make some noise. It's a really nice day to be out on the water today too. Oh well, it's low tide now, so most of the decent launch sites are not really useable, unless you like being up to your knees in mud. Tomorrow's another day and Donna's home then, so if the weather's nice we can take out the double instead.

As you can see from the next two pictures, the planing has been done. Using an electric planer makes the job so much easier, but you do need to be careful you don't get carried away. You need to stop every now and then to make sure your surfaces are level. Because of the slight twist in this piece I couldn't just use my square as you normally would, measuring from the edge. I had to use it as a straight edge instead.





This next picture shows how that curve in the timber has now disappeared.



Once the planing is done, it's time to mark out the shape of the paddle on both faces. I used my spirit level to draw the lines, I don't think it's completely straight, which is why I had problems yesterday marking out before I planed. I'd recommend using a steel rule, such as Matt uses in his video, for better accuracy. It's not really a problem for this part of the job though, since once you start shaping the paddle a lot of it comes down to how it looks, i.e. sighting down the length of the paddle.





If you have a bandsaw, I'd recommend you use that for cutting the shape out, rather than a jigsaw. In fact, a circular saw is better for cutting out along the straight parts of the blades than a jigsaw. The jigsaw is okay for cutting around where the loom meets the blades, but it's painfully slow, and noisy, for anything else. It may just be the blade I'm using, but it doesn't like to cut along the grain.



As you can see below, the jigsaw isn't a very accurate way of cutting, but as long as you keep outside the lines, on both sides of the timber, you'll be able to square it all up and make it look pretty with a plane or a spokeshave.



It's now starting to look like a Greenland paddle, and I've only been working on it for a few hours.



Next step is to tidy up the edges with a plane, then mark them up for the final lot of shaping.