A good friend of mine (Ben) broke his canoe paddle a couple weekends ago. He asked if we could build a new one in the shop. I'm not one to turn down a good shop project so we built 4 canoe paddles. I sent Ben home with two of the paddles and kept two for myself. There's just one problem. I don't have a canoe. Idea. Every year Madison does an event called the Paddle and Portage. Basically a bunch of crazy people in super light kevlar canoes with carbon fiber paddles paddle around some buoys on Lake Mendota, run across the Isthmus while carrying their super light vessel and then paddle across Monona to the finish at Olbrich Park. Two of my friends (not Ben) have been doing this race every year. They talk about it with so much passion. Last year they took 20th overall and beat second fastest team in the portage by 46 seconds. They've recently upgraded their canoe to a newer boat, but in the first few years, they used a vessel named "Bondo Boat". If my memory serves me right, it was found on the curb on Platteville's move out day. It had some "light damage" that was easily repaired by several coats of Bondo. If I had to guess, It was pushing 70 pounds. I thought they deserved a personalized paddle. If you are in the Madison area this weekend, check out the race and say high to team Bondo. Building paddles is a simple idea. Slap some short and wide boards onto a long and skinny board and remove everything that doesn't look like a paddle. This is my general strategy for most of the things i build. There are as many paddle styles as there are 90's boy bands so I wasn't super concerned about getting the shape exactly perfect. I found some wood I thought would make good paddles. A chunk of cherry, bit of basswood, and some ash. All are common paddle woods. At this point I didn't have any use for any paddles, but I always find it's just as easy to make several small objects compared to just one. I made 4 paddle blanks. After the blanks are dried, its a few easy cuts with on the band saw or coping saw and then 15 minutes at the sharpening stone with the hand plane. The rest of the shaping is done by hand with a No 4 Stanley and a tiny block plane. This really is a neat little project that anyone could do in their garage over a long weekend. The only tools you really need are a saw, glue, clamps, a hand plane and some sand paper. Power tools help make things go a little faster, but on small projects, set up time often is greater than it takes to do the task. I'm really glad I built that chair. I've used it hundreds of times already to set things on in my shop. After shaping it with the hand plane, I sanded out all of the planer marks and did some final shaping on the handle. Everything was done till it felt right. I didn't worry too much about dimensions. I added the personalized Team Bondo logo followed by 4 coats of poly. The basswood shaft (left) is significantly lighter than the Ash shaft (right). The tradeoff here is in a pretty big difference in stiffness between the two paddles.
Thanks for viewing and if you are out on the lake this weekend, watch out for the Bondo Boat. If they have their black sails up you better head for shore.
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Aaron Whalen:A blog about woodworking in Southwest Wisconsin Previous ProjectsArchives
February 2024
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