Was able to start working again the other day, figured I’d start with the extras for the Chum. I’m pretty sure the carrying yoke will be removable, and that’s what I started on. I decided to show this next little bit of wood butchery so that anyone who has never attempted to make a yoke before might see how easy it is.
I’m not overly picky when it comes to wood, I usually use what I have on hand. Right now I’ve got some 5/4 rough oak. Started out running it through the thickness planer.
Planed it down to 7/8 of an inch.
I have one template I use for all my carrying yokes, can’t remember where I developed it from, but it’s big and beefy and sits well on my shoulders.
I don’t have a lot of good tools, but one thing I didn’t scrimp on was my jigsaw. This one is a beauty, and cut through that oak like butter.
Here is my secret to sculpting hardwood. I used to use a chisel and mallet and carve the recessed part of the yoke out, and then use my spokeshave on all the hard angles. Now I just use a grinder with those flapper wheels. It’s insanely fast, although very dirty. I had the entire yoke roughed out in less than a half hour. If you try this, don’t use the grinder over any of your body parts that you wish to keep. It is a powerful tool that will chop skin, digits and bones off lickity split. However, once you get the hang of it, it can be a real finesse tool.
Flappy sand paper grinder thing (80 grit)
Finished up sanding it with my regular palm sander down to 150 grit, and will leave it at that. It’s supposed to warm up this weekend, so will probably varnish it then. Also got my seat cut out of oak, will put it together tomorrow. Ordered 100 feet of extra heavy 1.5 inch poly webbing from a Canadian company, came to 15 bucks, but the shipping and taxes brought it to over 30. Next week I’ll be working on the canoe again.
