Paddle Hemp Oil

Lately, most of my paddles have been maintained in basic oil finish. I prefer the simplicity of oil, the feel, and the ease of doing touchups. Most oil finishes have chemical solvents to speed up the drying process...chemicals that are quite toxic and foul smelling.

I've been intrigued with a new product brought out by the good folks over at Badger Canoe Paddles, a hemp based finishing oil. A lengthy writeup on their blog sounded very convincing. And after seeing the gorgeous satiny smooth finish on some of their commercial paddles at a local outfitter, I decided to give the oil a try on the spruce bushcraft cree paddle recently painted and on the canoe pole made last summer. So far, I'm very happy with the product and it's now my finish of choice. Obviously, you pay a premium price for a specialty finishing oil like this but it's great for those who want to get away from nasty solvents and other chemicals.

Varnishing the "Copper Tip"

An earlier post about Michael Weiser's paddle warping problem got me thinking about preventative maintenance on the thinned tip of the Maple Northwoods Paddle. While I'm quite diligent about maintaining my paddles with oil frequently, I thought that perhaps the delicate end grain of this paddle may need a bit more protection.

The paddle had been decorated with a fake burning of Copper Tip protector and figured it would be an interesting touch to add some glossy varnish to this decorative embellishment, both to make it look more "metallic" but also to seal the end grain more thoroughly.

After delicately brushing some thinned coats of spar varnish to the tip as well as to the design with a brush, I ended up with a nice glossy finish. Here are some shots which captured the difference in tone in the varnish tip versus the oiled blade...




Varnish & Shiny "Copper Tip"

Varnishing Laminated Paddles

While up at the cottage, I ended up varnishing some of my laminated paddles, including the Greenland Kayak, Ottertail Jay, and Adirondack Owl made earlier. Using the 8-paddle rack made by Redtail Paddle Company (picked up at the MEC paddlefest last September), I suspended them vertically and began the varnishing process. For the kayak paddle, a nail left over in a scrap piece of baseboard was used to elevate the bottom. When one end had dried, I flipped over the kayak paddle and did the other end. The regular canoe paddles were suspended upside down by clamping them lightly against the storage shed door once the varnish on the blade had dried. Not really the most time-efficient way to varnish, but I wasn't in a rush and it worked for me.


Hanging on the Rack; Kayak blade on nail; Clamped to do the grips
After a full day of multiple coats, I was left with some glossy final pics taken during the brief moments of sunshine.


Adirondack Owl


Ottertail Jay


The whole batch


After seeing these all together, I've realized I've used quite a bit of walnut lately. My new batch of stock is mostly lighter coloured woods.

Varnished Paddles

With warmer temperatures and glorious sunshine on this spring day, I got a chance to quickly revarnish two of my previous paddles from this past winter - The Walnut Kingfisher Solo and Cherry Bittern. Varnishing has obviously darkened the pyrography considerably (especially the walnut paddle), but I'm still happy with the results.



Cherry Bittern Paddle


Blade Closeup


Walnut Kingfisher Paddle


Blade Closeup

Varnishing

Check out posts on the very lively Canadian Canoe Routes Forums about the topic and you'll find unending debate about how to finish the paddle. Do you go with finicky varnish that's difficult to put on well but much more low maintenance, or oil which is a breeze to use but needs frequent re-application (some say as after each paddling use). The Canoe Museum Workshop provided each of us with enough Glossy Minwax® Helmsman® Spar Urethane (with a Material Safety Data Sheet printout) to provide 4 coats and thus far, I'm quite content with its use.

Varnishing safely requires a clean, well-ventilated area. For me that means working on the balcony to avoid fume buildup. I also rigged up a varnishing rack that allows me to hang the paddles vertically allowing any excess varnish to pool near the tip where more is needed to protect the end grain from water seepage. The real tip here is to use what you have...in my case, a folding laundry rack and an unused wall mount guitar hanger (for one of my other hobbies). I've since been able to rig up 3 paddles on the laundray racks using nothing but trigger-style grip clamps. A run to the dollar store to get an aluminium cooking tray to collect drips and a few foam brushes and I was in business.

The Hellsman Spar varnish says no thinning is required, but I always prefer applying many thin coats initially rather than apply this thick varnish in globs. Without being too obsessed with measures, I generally apply in the following order:

• First Coat: Thinned out 50/50 with minerals spirits.
  
• Sencond Coat: Thinned 70/30 with mineral spirits
  
• Third Coat: Unthinned varnish
  

Between each coating, I generally scour with a fine 0000-grade steel wool to remove any pooling and allow for each successive layer of varnish to stick.

Some paddlers varnish the blade and oil the grip to prevent blisters. I haven't tried that yet but intend to on some of my upcoming designs.