17th Century Kayak Paddle Replica - Part 2

While I had some time today, I began working on the 17th C. Paddle Replica commission piece. It took 4 days to securely bend and glueup all the cherry edges because of my limited number of clamps. The whole process went smoothly enought although there were some small gaps left on the tips where the strips didn't sit flush with the curvature of the paddle.


Clamped cherry edges
For the exposed basswood tips, I thought I would use some of the left over cherry bits and glue them edgewise for strength. I had cut two pieces that would fit into the tip areas, shaped the edges with a rasp, and put them into position. Given the fact that clamping tightly would not be an option here, I ended up using some 5-minutes Epoxy in this area which fills gaps nicely and doesn't need clamping. At this stage, it looks pretty crappy but I'm confident that I can shape it into a decent tip. I'm thinking of covering it in a layer of epoxy thickened with with sawdust filler when it is finally shaped to form a bit of resin tip from a technique I read about on BlueStem Paddler.


Cherry tips cut out; Epoxied into position
Today was a decent day in Toronto, so I ended up on the balcony for some rough planing. The basswood is really easy to carve and the cherry isn't bad either. After a short time I began drowning in shavings and had quickly worked both blades down to the level where I'll continue with the spokeshave later.


Shaving down the blades; The springtime view of the city

JUNE 19/08 Update: Paddle is now complete and final part has been posted