When working on the old busted sassafras tripper, a scarf repair was attempted on the shaft so that the paddle could be salvaged into a user again.
A joint was cut and a sassafras cutoff was successfully glued up.
A new centre line was drawn on the upper portion and a squarish grip similar to a design at the Maine Hudson Museum was sketched out. After cutting out the profile, the grip was worked on vigorously with a crooked knife and rasp to get the desired "grip bumps" and angled edges.
The new grip
The blade had weathered after being exposed untreated to the elements for years. It had been positioned upside down in the garden along the east fence line. The back of the blade facing the yard hard had weathered to a light brown colour while the more exposed face weathered into a greyish black patina.
Different sides of the weathered blade
After the successful glue repair, the shoulder and shaft area of the original blade revealed that the underlying sassafras has turned its golden brown. Between the blade weathering, the darkened sassafras and the light creamy new sassafras grip, the paddle now has 3 distinct colour tones. Not sure at this stage if I'll leave the paddle as is or attempt to lightly stain the new sassafras to at least darken it a bit.
March 25, 2017 Update: Paddle shaft has been wrapped with leather and is now complete. See the final post HERE.
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3 comments:
That looks great! I like the different colors and the shaft turned out very nice. I think you should leave it. Or maybe hang it from a tree outside and let the shaft darken naturally. The result never gets as good when done artificially.
Look awesome Murat!! Like Jonas, I would eave it age naturally... It's not like you really need that paddle anyway and it would be a great experiment! The colour of the blade is really nice! Ho some time it is not worth hiding work it took to bring back something to life!! Leave it age on it's own or finish it w/o hiding the differences, differences are good!!
Cheers
Thanks guys. I think you're right. It should be left to age naturally without any cosmetic surgery...
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