Decorated Canoe Paddle
A gracefully shaped spruce canoe paddle with an equally graceful swan within a double circle painted on the blade, all with an appealing old crazed shellac surface.
Circa 1920
6' w, 70" h
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Swan Spruce Paddle
Another antique paddle from the Cherry Gallery's Current Items (February) page...
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Vintage Paddle Photos - The Roaring 20s
Found another curious vintage canoe photo featuring some bathing beauties lounging around a wooden canoe dated to 1922...
The caption from the source site reads:
The caption from the source site reads:
Six women in swimwear at the Potomac Tidal Basin beach, Washington, D.C., 1922. Actress Kay Laurell is third from right, reclining in the canoe. Others are unidentified, they may be fellow actresses, possibly from the production "Ladies' Night" in which Laurell was appearing in Washington in July of 1922; woman at back right playing "oar guitar" may be co-star Eleanor Griffith.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Leather Solo Seat
Another off-season project I have been gradually working is a leather sling seat for the 15ft cedar canvas canoe. Paddling solo means kneeling as close to the center point of the canoe as possible. With my shorter, symmetrical 14foot canoe, the bow seat is perfectly positioned to paddling the canoe "backwards" so that my rump can rest on the edge of the seat and take weight off the heels if needed. With this option and full kneeling on the bottom of the hull, paddling the 14 footer is a joy.
The longer 15ft cedar canvas logically has its seats positioned further towards the ends of the canoe and paddling in reverse while resting on the bow seat results in an awkward stern heavy position when the boat is unloaded. So a solution was in order. I considered the idea of adding a permanent kneeling thwart but then wanted to explore a more removable option - hence the pursuit of a personalized sling seat.
Tom Seavey of Azland Traditions is the creator of Original Saddle Seat. I've seen a few first hand at some canoe gatherings and have always admired the quality leather workmanship. Here's shot of one I took at the WCHA Assembly held in Peterborough back in '08
Original Saddle Seat by Azland Traditions
I'm assuming this design was meant to be used as true seat with folks sitting while paddling...it is quite wide and sturdily built. Since I was making a sling seat for exclusively kneeling, I figured that the dimensions could be narrower.
While Tom's design is stunning, there was one more issue I had with my personal style of paddling. After maybe an hour or so paddling on one side, I might switch sides and heel the boat the other way to give muscles a needed break. This means the seat would need to be able to slide from the extreme port to extreme starboard side of the boat. Tom's design with its 4 independent straps doesn't allow for instant adjustment. The buckles would need to be undone and the seat repositioned each time.
Another option was for the seat to "ride" on webbing straps tied to the inwales. Stewart River Boatworks sells a canvas canoe seat with webbing that looks promising as well but hand stitching waxed canvas isn't my idea of fun.
Stewart River Canvas Canoe Seat
Eventually, I came across BigBlue's post on WildSurvive featuring a pic of his homemade sling seat made of a combination of leather and webbing straps.
BigBlue's Leather Sling Seat
His design with two layers of leather laced together riding on webbing straps strung across the boat fit the bill. I didn't have enough leather on hand to mimic his design and wasn't crazy about the lacing idea.
So my own version involved a 8" wide by 20" long piece of veg tan leather along with two 6ft long, 1-1/2" wide straps to sling across the inwales. The straps would be fashioned into a simple belt. To prevent the edge of the leather seat from digging into the skin, I thought I would fold over the edges and lace them in place by playing around with some grommets and scrap piece of leather lace.
8"x20" piece with grommets
Edges folded in and tightened with lace
Leather is a suitable medium for pyrography and like my EBook cover made a while back, I obviously wanted some canoe related theme. I was aiming for a sort of old-fashioned, western look with a paddler & bark canoe rather than a typical horse & rider scene. After finding some clipart on the web, here is my adaptation.
Burned decoration
Of course the leather gets darker when stained and treated with waterproofing finishes but here is the completed project...
Finished saddle seat
Before the very late freezeup of the lake this year, I got the chance to try out the sling seat on a short jaunt. Here's how it looks on strapped in...
Buckled into the boat
Because of the rib positions and the dimensions of the actual seat, the belt straps don't end up running parallel so the seat can't slide completely side to side as originally intended...oh well. I also seemed to have lost one belt keeper loop that keeps the straps nice and taught at the inwale, but all in all, it worked well. I ended up moving it one rib location further astern than the pic after giving it a trial run and this allowed to get into a full kneeling position behind the centre thwart if I wanted to and then quickly come up onto the seat if needed. Overall, it was more than sufficient to support my (ever growing) weight and is comfortable enough when paddling in the kneeling position to keep the weight off the heels. Plus, being a not permanent and removable accessory, it can be taken off and put into another canoe if needed.
The longer 15ft cedar canvas logically has its seats positioned further towards the ends of the canoe and paddling in reverse while resting on the bow seat results in an awkward stern heavy position when the boat is unloaded. So a solution was in order. I considered the idea of adding a permanent kneeling thwart but then wanted to explore a more removable option - hence the pursuit of a personalized sling seat.
Tom Seavey of Azland Traditions is the creator of Original Saddle Seat. I've seen a few first hand at some canoe gatherings and have always admired the quality leather workmanship. Here's shot of one I took at the WCHA Assembly held in Peterborough back in '08
Original Saddle Seat by Azland Traditions
I'm assuming this design was meant to be used as true seat with folks sitting while paddling...it is quite wide and sturdily built. Since I was making a sling seat for exclusively kneeling, I figured that the dimensions could be narrower.
While Tom's design is stunning, there was one more issue I had with my personal style of paddling. After maybe an hour or so paddling on one side, I might switch sides and heel the boat the other way to give muscles a needed break. This means the seat would need to be able to slide from the extreme port to extreme starboard side of the boat. Tom's design with its 4 independent straps doesn't allow for instant adjustment. The buckles would need to be undone and the seat repositioned each time.
Another option was for the seat to "ride" on webbing straps tied to the inwales. Stewart River Boatworks sells a canvas canoe seat with webbing that looks promising as well but hand stitching waxed canvas isn't my idea of fun.
Stewart River Canvas Canoe Seat
Eventually, I came across BigBlue's post on WildSurvive featuring a pic of his homemade sling seat made of a combination of leather and webbing straps.
BigBlue's Leather Sling Seat
His design with two layers of leather laced together riding on webbing straps strung across the boat fit the bill. I didn't have enough leather on hand to mimic his design and wasn't crazy about the lacing idea.
So my own version involved a 8" wide by 20" long piece of veg tan leather along with two 6ft long, 1-1/2" wide straps to sling across the inwales. The straps would be fashioned into a simple belt. To prevent the edge of the leather seat from digging into the skin, I thought I would fold over the edges and lace them in place by playing around with some grommets and scrap piece of leather lace.
8"x20" piece with grommets
Edges folded in and tightened with lace
Leather is a suitable medium for pyrography and like my EBook cover made a while back, I obviously wanted some canoe related theme. I was aiming for a sort of old-fashioned, western look with a paddler & bark canoe rather than a typical horse & rider scene. After finding some clipart on the web, here is my adaptation.
Burned decoration
Of course the leather gets darker when stained and treated with waterproofing finishes but here is the completed project...
Finished saddle seat
Before the very late freezeup of the lake this year, I got the chance to try out the sling seat on a short jaunt. Here's how it looks on strapped in...
Buckled into the boat
Because of the rib positions and the dimensions of the actual seat, the belt straps don't end up running parallel so the seat can't slide completely side to side as originally intended...oh well. I also seemed to have lost one belt keeper loop that keeps the straps nice and taught at the inwale, but all in all, it worked well. I ended up moving it one rib location further astern than the pic after giving it a trial run and this allowed to get into a full kneeling position behind the centre thwart if I wanted to and then quickly come up onto the seat if needed. Overall, it was more than sufficient to support my (ever growing) weight and is comfortable enough when paddling in the kneeling position to keep the weight off the heels. Plus, being a not permanent and removable accessory, it can be taken off and put into another canoe if needed.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Nigel's Krieghoff Paddle Replica
Paddle enthusiast Nigel acquired an Edenwood Northwoods paddle and decided to decorate the handcarved beauty with some artwork. With his permission, some photos of his work are posted here in addition to more details on the WCHA forum. He ended up inspired by the some of the Cornelius Krieghoff paintings at the McCord Museum in Montreal which feature a colourful chevron pattern.
Aboriginal Camp in Lower Canada
Cornelius Krieghoff (1815-1872)
1847, 19th century
Paddle Closeup
Nigel's Decorated Edenwood Paddle
Blade closeup
Grip Closeup
Nigel's Decorated Edenwood Paddle
The grip area was decorated with a burned image a rabbit smoking a pipe, a native theme symbolizing confidence in the face of danger, popularized in the film The Edge.
Grip Closeup
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Maine Hunters Paddle
From Windows on Maine, an image of some hunters in a canoe dated to 1887. The stern paddler has a nice looking paddle with an elongated, stepped grip. The canoe is a closed-gunnel cedar canvas canoe that would've been quite an early example of cedar canvas construction.
John Hall and Herbert Washington in a canoe on Ragged Lake, Maine. A trophy Maine whitetail buck is transported by canoe back to camp following a successful hunt at Ragged Lake, Maine in the late summer of 1887.
Paddle Closeup
John Hall and Herbert Washington in a canoe on Ragged Lake, Maine. A trophy Maine whitetail buck is transported by canoe back to camp following a successful hunt at Ragged Lake, Maine in the late summer of 1887.
Paddle Closeup
