Greenland Paddle part 4

Now for the fun bit, the hand planing. I have a cheap, Trojan hand plane, made in China and bought in Bunnings. It's not the best for this job, but once the handle is removed it works. A decent block plane would work better, it'd certainly be a lot more comfortable to use. You could use the electric planer, but you don't really have enough control over it, at least I don't.

So sit yourself down in a comfy chair, or sit on a sawing horse, whatever you have handy, and start planing. The next two pictures show what the paddle looks like when you've finished planing.





If you're like me, once you've finished planing you'll have a few rough spots left that just get rougher the more you plane. Time to bring out the sander. I used an orbital sander to get it as close as I could to looking right, then finished off with some 150 paper on a block to finish off and get rid of any left over pencil marks.

Below is the finished item. All it needs now is a few coats of whatever you want to coat it with. I'm using Linseed oil, mainly because it was easy to get. Tung oil, the proper stuff, is what most people recommend and I've also heard Deks Olje recommended. The choice is yours.









Now to try them out, then get started on the kayak.