It's Just a Paddle

 I started kayaking around 8 or 9 years old on a swim team outing on the Sacramento River, up near Redding, California. These were Fold-a-boat knock-offs that were made by one of the parents. He had made enough of these plywood and canvas boats to fill a pick-up truck bed up to the ceiling of the shell. The paddles for these ingenious kayaks were made from a closet rod with paddle blades made from pieces of plywood fitted and bolted into slots at the ends of the closet rod and secured with a couple of bolts each. They worked great as we paddled around the edges of the river. They were so popular that we had to take turns with one of the parents being the timer, so everyone got a turn on the river. 

Over the years, my kayaks were mostly "Tupperware" varieties of different shapes and sizes with the paddles being purchased new from the lower end of the cost spectrum. The used paddles were often the prizes being slightly higher quality and accompanying a used kayak purchase. The really good ones allowed you to offset or feather the blades. Fancy!

On one of our first trips together this last Fall after we had made the decision to do the journey together, Peter brought a "practice" Greenland paddle with him. What the practice was about was that he had made the paddle from a Douglas Fir 2x4 to practice making a paddle. I loved the shape--long and narrow--but was it heavy! I flailed about clumsily using it like one would use a "Euro" style paddle, because it would take several YouTube videos before I realized that paddling using the Greenland style paddle is done completely differently than using the "Euro" style paddle. I put "Euro" in quotes because up until the introduction of the Greenland paddle, it was only known to me as a "kayak"
paddle. 

I'm not sure which came first Peter telling me about Brian Shultz and Cape Falcon Kayak or my telling Peter that I found this set of plans on the interwebs and he told me about his conversations with Brian. Either way, I ended up following Brian's lead in building a Greenland kayak paddle. https://cape-falcon-kayak.thinkific.com/collections/greenland-paddle-building 

Peter smuggled over a Doug Fir 2x4 one day that he said would be perfect to build a paddle. Clean, straight, and so pretty that it seemed like he was showing his latest shipment of Cocaine from Canada. (Just to be clear, Peter is not involved in the Cocaine trade and it wouldn't come from Canada anyway.) The two paddles on the left are Peter's "practice" paddle and his broken paddle. I don't think I've gotten the story yet on how he broke it, but it impressed upon me the need to build at least two.

Armed with my $12 set of plans from Brian Schultz' web page and having watched his videos several times, I set out to carve me a paddle. 

At my friend Steven's workshop, he helped me shave a bit off the length and width of the paddle blank. When we tried to use the bandsaw, it was clear that I didn't have the skills to cut such an unwieldy piece of wood using that tool. I used a jigsaw instead. Like Brian said in one of his videos, the quality of tools helps tremendously! It was a joy using some of Steven's nice tools.

The act of focusing on shape while carving, scraping, and sanding was very therapeutic. I was able to work for hours at a time, which for me is usually an effort. I didn't track hours or costs in building these paddles. On purpose. It didn't matter. The Western Red Cedar blanks were $41 each, but they were perfect. I'm glad that Peter picked them out for me, as I would have fussed and fussed over the choices. 

Lots of shavings were produced in carving the three paddles. The fir shavings went to pathways in Steven's yard and the cedar shavings went to making bee homes, which were a project Steven had underway. 

I used Rubio Monocoat, which was suggested by Brian in his videos, to put the final finish onto the paddles. I did all three paddles at the same time, and they came out great! Now, they just have to sit for a week before I can use them. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/5iVbqo3SRcMCSNucA

 Link to entire photo album