• Happy Birthday, Stan "the Man" Musial (1920-2013)! ⚾🐦

Paddle making extravaganza

I have a really good canoe cart now, built for Marshall, have yet to use it.
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Wheels are actually off a wheel chair, probably plastic. I'm thinking maybe quitting work end of April this year, so maybe I'll finally get to try it out.
 
Wheels are actually off a wheel chair, probably plastic. I'm thinking maybe quitting work end of April this year, so maybe I'll finally get to try it out.
Might still work, the port is long but easy if I remember correctly. I would kind of like to just go into Gripp for a week of fishing and come back out through Marshall again. Avoid some of the other ports although the fishing in the Kap was fabulous, 25" pickerel.
 
So I changed things up in the middle of construction, and decided to make a couple of Sugar Island style paddles, laminated cherry and sassafras. All three paddles below just received their first seal coat of epoxy. They are all going to be Christmas gifts, I'm going to try to pump two more out in the next couple of weeks.
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Earwig Specials. Nice. I can't wait to see what graces the next set. Cockroach? Centipede? Roly Poly?

Alan
 
Lol, I'm glad you recognized the bug, I was worried about my artistic abilities. My son's yard was infested with earwigs this summer, so it has been a running joke, he has made about a hundred memes involving earwigs, and at our Halloween gig, him and his girlfriend showed up in earwig costumes......so, I'm keeping with the flow. Planed down an ottertail today, and finished off the sassafras beavertail with the worm holes. I've got one piece of cherry left, might actually make one for myself, thinking it will be a beavertail.
 
Two more almost finished. The ottertail is the last of the cherry from Gamma, and it really turned out nice. I've had a student teacher for the last five weeks, she's really done a great job with my classes, so I'm going to give that one to her. The beavertail is the sassafras one piece paddle with the worm holes.
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I filled the worm holes with wood filler and then did a double wrap of glass around that part of the shaft. Feels soild, doesn't look great, but I'm keeping this one for myself, somehow it just feels like it will paddle really well.
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I've still got enough wood for a couple of laminates, but might wait till after Christmas, I'm kind of paddled out at the moment.
 
Worm holes give a lot of character to the the sassafras beaver tail. I’ve always been drawn to imperfection's, wood grain, spalting, birds hug eyes and burls in wood.
Student Teacher is a a lucky woman, tis great to be on Santa’s nice list.
 
Worm holes give a lot of character to the the sassafras beaver tail. I’ve always been drawn to imperfection's, wood grain, spalting, birds hug eyes and burls in wood.
Student Teacher is a a lucky woman, tis great to be on Santa’s nice list.

Agreed! Character can imbue the commonplace with history and meaning. There's a Japanese aesthetic term called Wabi-sabi, which embraces what is imperfect and incomplete.

My wife an I have an old butter dish that we bought when we were first married. I dropped it one day and the lid broke into three pieces but I managed to repair it with epoxy. Later, my mother-in-law noticed the cracks and gifted us a new butter dish, but we had grown so fond the original, especially so once it survived a careful surgery, that we simply can't let it go. Those worm holes tell a story and will remind you of how amazing it is that your piece of that tree became this paddle.
 
So I got stuck with an art class this year, so I did what I know, got the kids to make paddles and paint them.

They should all get A's for those beautiful efforts. I have trouble deciding which I like the best. Maybe, just slightly, the detail on both the paddle and shaft on the middle one.
 
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