The modern canoe pole shoe

[Steve in Idaho]

I mentioned in another thread that I make my own shoes for wood canoe poles. I'm pretty happy with this design - which I stole from Ed Hayden's aluminum poles. It isn't traditional, but it works and holds up real well under heavy use.

I start with a couple inches of 1.25" delrin rod chucked into the lathe, and turn all but the last 1/2" down for a press-fit to the ID of my aluminum tubing.



Then, I drill a slightly undersized hole for a 3/8" x 2.5" grade 8 bolt. I place the small end of the plug in a matching hole drilled in a wood block to hold it straight, and a spring-loaded pipe wrench keeps it from spinning while drilling the hole. The hole is drilled just deep enough for the threaded part of the bolt - it does not go clear through.



Next, I thread a nut all the way onto the bolt, add a flat washer under the nut, and thread the bolt into the delrin plug. The bench vise keeps pressure on the bolt head and plug to aid in threading it in, while the pipe wrench again keeps it from spinning. A little teflon spray lube also helps. This is the step that made me start using grade 8 bolts. Softer bolts were breaking before threading all the way in.



This is what it looks like when the threading is done.



The next two steps are interchangeable. The bolt head has to be ground off so it won't catch in the rocks. I can do this before pressing the plug into the tubing, or after. The inside of the tubing has to be clean and roughed-up with course grit, and I seal the plug into the tubing with Plumbers Goop. If I did everything right, I have to tap it all together with a hammer.

Oh - those pieces of tubing are about 6" long, but that surely isn't critical. The material for these pieces was left over from making aluminum poles. My supplier gets the .058 wall 6061 T6 tubing in 20' lengths. I buy two 20-footers and cut 8' from each. This gives me material for two one-piece 12' poles, one two-piece 12' pole, and enough left over for shoes for four wood poles.



So, for now, I shape the wood poles with these tools after ripping an octagon blank. I'm working on a faster method, but this is it for now. I keep a piece of tubing handy to test the fit as I size the ends for the shoe. I measure and mark where the shoulder will be on the pole so that the end fits all the way into the shoe with no air gap.



Notice that the scraper is marked for various diameters. It's actually pretty accurate.



This is how it all looks - after a couple years of use. I decided not to wait until my current pole is done for a photo.



After roughing up the inside of the tubing, I drill a tiny hole just behind the plug for excess epoxy to squeeze out. If the fit is right, that hole is necessary to get the shoe to press into place with epoxy.

That's it. These shoes are lighter than the bronze shoes I have on one of my poles, and I suspect they are also lighter than any steel shoes. They may not wear quite as well, but I'm happy with the way they are holding up. If I need to, I can heat up the ends and pull the plugs out to replace them - but I haven't had to do that yet.

Hey, BTW - I tried to upload photos directly at first and decided that wasn't going to work. When I tried to delete the first one, I couldn't make that work without replacing it with another photo. So - I left you all a sample of some of the work I've been doing in between canoe projects. That's a framed print made with 100 year-old barn wood, that I put together for my son.

 

[Jim Dodd]

Great project, and very well executed !
I've always wanted to get into poling, you may have given me a boost !
Thanks Steve !

Where do you obtain the delrin ?

Jim

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Thanks, Jim. We have a local plastics supplier here, but there are online sources too. IIRC, I found the rods for my first attempt on ebay.

 

[Jim Dodd]

Thanks Steve !

Jim

 

[Murat V]

Thanks for detailed tutorial, Steve! You mentioned this foot is lighter than your bronze shoe and stainless ones too. I guess my question is do you find the lighter weight makes a significant difference for the foot to sink. As a bit of a novice, I found it a bit helpful if the pole end sank without me "fighting" it too much. Maybe with more time and skill development, I won't feel the same.

Also, is that new pole you're carving, ash? Perhaps I'm over-thinking things, but am wondering if a heavier ash pole would sink better with this style of foot versus a lighter spruce pole.

 

[Alan Gage]

Steve, why not use a tap to cut the threads rather than relying on the bolt? You mentioned the effort required was enough to break bolts less than grade 8 so cutting them with a tap seems like it might be a good choice. Then again if you're only building one or two a year it probably isn't that big of a deal.

That was an interesting tutorial, thanks for posting it.

Alan

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Murat - the bronze shoes I mentioned are on one of my aluminum poles, and yes the weight does help to get the pole to the bottom. They're just like this one....

http://www.bghooke.com/canoepole.htm

I get about the same results in deeper pushy water using my heavy ash pole with my ends made as above. Both of those poles weigh about 5 lbs. When it comes to that, I don't think it matters much whether the weight is concentrated on the ends or if it's spread over the length of the pole - because the pole is mostly vertical for the plant anyway.

The pole I'm working on now is also ash, but I'm trying to make it lighter than 5 lbs. I should see some ddifference by making the diameter uniformly 1.25", instead of leaving it thicker in the middle. We'll see how that works out. I have another pole made with hemlock and my home made shoes, and it weighs a little over 3 lbs. The lighter pole would normally be easier to use in shallow and less pushy water (same as my 3 lb one-piece Hayden style pole), but that one is almost a foot longer - which kind of neutralizes the advantage. That pole is an on-going experiment which I don't recommend. Besides the length issue, I found the hemlock to be difficult to work because of it's tendency to peel away at the edges of the grain. It requires more frequent maintenance for the same reason.

I wish I could get spruce here, but I have been unable to find a reasonably priced source.

Oh, in case you're wondering - I guesstimate that a 12' ash pole with those bronze shoes on both ends would weigh around 7 lbs. Heavy! I like how those ends work in loose gravel, but I don't think I'd want that much weight in a double-ended pole. I think one of those shoes would be great on a traditional single-ended pole though. Might even get the weight down some by making the dry end thinner.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Steve, why not use a tap to cut the threads rr than relying on the bolt? You mentioned the effort required was enough to break bolts less than grade 8 so cutting them with a tap seems like it might be a good choice. Then again if you're only building one or two a year it probably isn't that big of a deal.

As you've probably guessed, I don't have the tools for it.

I haven't confirmed it, but it would probably be cheaper to tap the hole and use cheaper bolts - even if they wear faster and have to be replaced. OTOH, these bolts don't seem to wear much at all once the ends are rounded off.

I am only doing about one or two a year, but I'm hoping to generate some more local interest in poling. Only way I see that taking off is to keep a ready supply of poles at hand.

 

[Jonas Sjöblom]

Thats great! I love seeing new creative solutions. What I'm thinking though is if water somehow gets inside the shoe it won't get out and will eat up the wood real quick. But it looks like you did a very good job sealing it.