Best woods to use for double paddle?

[dmede]

I need to build a double paddle for my canoe, what woods should I be looking at using? Inparticular, how are spruce, ash or poplar for paddles (shaft & blade)? Any others?

Thanks

[Thad]

I prefer spruce.

[Jack Heinlen]

Spruce. Start poking around some of the boat shops and such in your area. A chunk of Sitka, too short for much else, might just be sitting in a corner with your name on it. Some sort of spruce is the way with a paddle to be held up for long periods of time. Ash makes a good strong oar, and because it can be balanced the weight doesn't make much difference, but a paddle...

I don't know much about double paddles. Are the blades always offset? Is there usually a joint in the center?

[dmede]

I think you can offset them or have them run inline according to prefernce and joints are also optional. I'll be making this a one peice for now but may cut it and install a ferrule later for convenience. Since this is my first paddle and I want to kee p it simple I guess my options for alighnment are straight or rotated 90* to each other which seems like a lot.

Spruce is what I have heard too.

Thanks.

[Ian McColgin]

Given how ash can be a bit smaller in the loom, I'd bet the weight comes out about the same. I'm going with spruce myself because I want a loom big enough - a bit under 1-1/2" feels good in my hand.

I accidentally learned the way Derrick Hutchinson teaches - 90 degree feather. It is no harder to build out the blade either way and to my feel the feathering is actually more natural. Done correctly, there's really no wrist twisting.

I'm making my blades the way some of the newer ocean blades are coming out with a bit of a rib down the center on both faces and not scooped or dished at all. For sculling or bracing, the center rib gives you what amounts to a power face on both sides. I've been experimenting with my conventionally dished paddle and there's just not enough power difference to the scoop to justify, with my stroke at least, bothering.

I think you're right to make it one piece.

Have fun.

[Jack Heinlen]

Ian makes interesting points, but as he points to, making the ash light as a spruce paddle might make it awfully thin in the loom. Spruce.

As to shape, I remember an article in WB in the last two years 'bout a fellow who was both a scholar of and builder of Inuit kayak. I seem to remember his paddles were rather clunkly looking, but apparently a fine evolution, a squared, not very broad blade.

Let us know how it evolves. Nothing says you have to make just one. smile.gif

[AndyFarquhar]

White cedar makes great paddles. I've made several singles and a double for my son. I did not feather the blades on the double.

Regards

Andy

[Jack Heinlen]

Yah, cedar works. It doesn't have to be very strong.

Do let us know, I'm curious now.

[Paul Scheuer]

My double is maple, 90 degrees. It looks great, has fine features, and weighed a ton. I got it down to about four pounds, by shaping the loom to about 1-1/8 dia in the center and ovoid 1 by 1-1/2 at the grips, blending into a hint of a rib down the blade.

The oval shapes let me feel the blade orientation and give a little more control. They are symetrical so that it doesn't matter how I grab on. The blades are about 5 inch wide beaver tails. The 90 degrees may not be optimal, but it feels natural enough to me.

[dmede]

well it may be a couple weeks before i pick-up any wood for this. I'm putting the last coat of varnish on the inside of the canoe this week, and will be flipping it to paint the bottom this weekend. should hit the water in 2 weeks.

thanks all.

[Bob Smalser]

I don't have any spruce close by...and mast-grade is 8 bucks a BF here....so I use Red Cedar for oars and it seems to work just fine using the same scantlings used for the stronger spruce.

Consider using some of your planking stock. If you have to buy special, then Basswood at 3 bucks a BF locally also works fine...it ain't durable, but neither is spruce.

[rbgarr]

I knew a boatbuilder in the Pac NW who took delivery of some spruce for a boat he was building. In among the load he says he found a piece that was 'musical instrument grade'. He used it for a sprung thwart on a Cornish Pilot Gig. He said that the thwart would hum if you hit it just so!

[Todd Bradshaw]

Building a one-piece feathered paddle isn't usually such a great idea. On one end the grain is most likely going to be running 90 degrees or so from the direction it should be. Nearly all good wooden one-piece paddles (both whitewater and flatwater/sprint) have a long scarph in the middle of the shaft to re-orient the grain on one end. Most of my old high-end German whitewater paddles used a strip of ash about 1/4" thick down the middle of a laminated softwood shaft to add strength, then the laminated shafts were cut and scarphed. I can testify to the fact that they are quite durable and for whitewater paddles not terribly heavy. For touring, you could laminate the shaft, but probably don't need the hardwood to generate reasonable strength.

If you choose not to feather the blades, then one piece of good clear stock works fine. Spruce, if you have it, is best, but anything found in a carefully selected 2x6 seems to work pretty well. I've been building Greenland-style paddles with unfeathered, narrow blades from Home Depot cedar 2x6's lately and they are wonderfully light and lively feeling. Plan on picking through a whole stack of boards to find one really good one, but they're there if you dig far enough. You do need to be a bit careful what you bang a cedar paddle on, but the light weight is worth it.

There is also always the option of a cedar-strip blade inserted into a slotted shaft, glued-in and glassed-over like a Sawyer canoe paddle, but it would still be a good idea to scarph the shaft. Hutchinson's Toksook feathered, ribbed flat blade might be a good one to copy if you want something wider and shorter than a greenland shape yet still good for long distance touring and general work.
http://www.useakayak.org/toksook.html

[Bruce Hooke]

If you do not have enough experience to know whether you prefer the blades aligned or 90 degrees to each other I would recommend seeing if you can borrow a paddle that can be adjusted either way and paddling for a while with it both ways to see which way you prefer. I prefer 90 degrees to each other and find aligned paddles annoying (especially going into the wind) but I know other people who hate the 90 degree setup. It would be a shame to put a lot of work into making a paddle only to discover that you prefer the other way. A place that rents kayaks would probably be quite happy to rent you a paddle for the afternoon. Give both ways a good tryout so that you don't immediately reject the second way you try just because it feels unnatural after what you were just doing it.

[JimConlin]

I have a store-bought Sawyer paddle which i like very much. The Sawyer site (http://www.paddlesandoars.com/frame_paddles.html) might give you some ideas.

[John Bell]

I knew a couple of wooden whitewater paddle builders and got to spend some time watching them practice their craft.

As Todd said, every feathered blade has a long scarf in the middle. They would make up the square shaft blanks and cut and glue the scarfs before the shaft was rounded.

There are a couple of ways they would make shafts light and strong. Scarborough, Blackburn, and the guys who make Silver Creek paddles would laminate a 3/4" thick slab of basswood in between 3/8" slabs of ash. Then the whole mess was shaped into an oval where most of the ash was removed. In use, the ash would be in tension or compression.

Jim Snyder likes to use sassafrass with a 1/4" strip of ash in the center. The picture below shows scarf in a Snyder paddle. This particular paddle has a 45 degree offset (which is wonderful, if you haven't tried it.)

http://mistermoon.home.mindspring.com/paddlescarf.jpg

Edited to add: The tooling to cut 90 degree scarfs is pretty straight forward. I have no idea how they cut them for a 45 degree offset. I can't imagine that it'd be easy, though.

[ 03-08-2004, 11:01 PM: Message edited by: John Bell ]

[skuthorp]

I have a Liminat paddle, built in thelate 70's. Larch and spruce they say, 45degree, blades for essentially a flat water sprint paddle. Open and rough water blades are a different profile, like oars. I know there have been several threads on the subject here.
http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005219

[ 03-09-2004, 03:25 AM: Message edited by: skuthorp ]

[skuthorp]

I have a Liminat paddle, built in thelate 70's. Larch and spruce they say, 45degree, blades for essentially a flat water sprint paddle. Open and rough water blades are a different profile, like oars. I know there have been several threads on the subject here.
http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb. php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005219 (http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005219)
Type paddles in the design and plan section here, plenty of reading there. smile.gif

[ 03-09-2004, 03:31 AM: Message edited by: skuthorp ]

[Ian McColgin]

Todd, I'm glad you mentioned the scarf and grain allignment before I got really going here. I might noodle it out for myself, but should it be that the view of the rings is normal to or parallel to the blade. I take it that the rings on the wood for the blade itself should be more or less parallel to the blade ??

Now that I think about it, there's a lot about paddlemaking I don't know since I've not had to consider wood structure and lightness so closely before.

[FG]

Don't worry about the wood for the first paddle and don't varnish it before you use it. I built a practice paddle out of a stud and used it for a few weeks before building a fancier paddle. Modifications I made on the second one included smaller loom, thinner blades smaller shoulders, and narrower loom for my greenland paddle. My favorite wood combination is a darker cedar with maple laminations. I use only polyurethane glues and have had no problems with the 20 or so paddles I've made. Secret with polyurethane glues is not to worry about starving joints like you do with epoxy. Clamp away. Also scrape the foam after an hour or so. Makes sanding a lot easier. Don't forget to use gloves.

[Brian Palmer]

I used clear spruce cut from the edges of a 2x8 from the lumber yard (good wood cheap) and added clear spruce to build up the width for the blades. I used a ferrule in the middle from Chesapeake Light Craft. This actually made construction easier than building one long paddle. Total cost was about $20 to $30 for wood and ferrule. It is as light as any of the store bought ones (except carbon fiber).

I used a pattern for a Herreshoff double paddle from WoodenBoat No. 115. See also the WB index for several how-to-build articles. They were useful.

Poplar also makes a good paddle and is a little tougher. It might be better for a single blade paddle than a double.

-- Brian

[BRU]

Spend the money and buy a piece of sitka spruce. It's wonderful to work with hand tools and makes a beautiful paddle - very light. The only sad part is the pile of VERY expensive shavings on the floor. Are you making a one or two piece paddle?

[Brian Palmer]

One other point on blade orientation, a lot of paddle builders shifted from 90 degrees to 60 or 70 degrees in order to avoid developing carpal tunnel syndrome in the right wrist, which rotates the paddle. I don't think you can buy a decent single piece double paddle now that is set at 90 degrees.

-- brian

[Bob Smalser]

Edited to add: The tooling to cut 90 degree scarfs is pretty straight forward. I have no idea how they cut them for a 45 degree offset. I can't imagine that it'd be easy, though.
I'd probably make a special sliding table for the TS out of a 3'X3' sheet of plywood and a couple scraps attached beneath to ride in the miter slide mortises.

I'd draw a diagonal line on the top surface to match the scarf angle I wanted, then mill some coved strips as supports for the shaft on the router table and attach them with hot melt glue.

I'd set the paddle shaft on its supports....handholding it down.....and cut it in half on the diagonal using a finish blade.

I'd set one half aside, lay the other half back into the near side sliding table supports, set a protractor at the cut end, and with a tick mark on the shaft as a reference, I'd simply rotate it the number of degrees of offset I desired, then hold the shaft down in that position and make my second cut.

Then I'd epoxy the two scarfs together and reinforce with a brass rod once cured. I'd through-drill for the brass reinforcing rod across the opposite diagonal, cut the rod a bit short, coat it with epoxy, and drive it through using a punch to countersink. Then I'd fill the holes with slivers of matching wood and use oil pigments to hide the glue lines during finishing.

This would require a round shaft....if I wanted an oval shape, I'd make the cuts and scarf on the oversize round shaft and rasp it into whatever final shape I wanted after curing.


http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/3866245/47639689.jpg

Once I’m satisfied I have the buttstock’s stain coats thoroughly sealed…usually with two coats of these thin, finger-applied varnishes…I do the final color stage to hide any glue lines and remaining imperfections. This step clouds the finish and is used sparingly. In the sunlight, I mix Raw and Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna oil pigments to achieve an exact color match, adding a couple drops of drier as I mix. Applied sparingly and feathered with a fingertip to the freshly-rubbed finish, this hides obvious glue lines well if I feather carefully to avoid the painted-stripe look. Apply too little rather than too much. The excess goes in the freezer in case another application is needed after the next finish coat.


[ 03-09-2004, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]

[John Bell]

Bob's jig idea sounds good.

I don't think the brass rod is necessary, however. I've had half a dozen wooden kayak paddles with nothing but glue holding the scarfs together. I've abused and broken several paddles running some pretty harum-scarum whitewater, but never at the scarf joint. It's a lot more likely that wipe out the blades than the shafts. The only shaft I ever broke was an incident where a boat was dropped on a paddle which was wedged in some rocks. The rocks made a perfect fulcrum on which the shaft cleanly snapped.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Yes, you can buy a 90 degree feather, but you'll probably need to hunt for it. The Toksook is one. Most manufacturers will build you one if you ask for it. After using 90 degree feathers for over 25 years before ever buying a 60 degree paddle, my carpel tunnels seem to be fine, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. I'm actually in the process of having our 60 degree, one piece carbon paddles cut in half and the new Werner adjustable ferrules installed in them and offset enough to allow 90 degree feathering as well as 60. While the 60's are nice for easy days, they were really starting to bug me in high winds due to the way they want to twist and flutter since the blades don't slice cleanly through the wind.

The other thing that is for the most part lost with a non-90 degree or non-zero-degree feathers is ease of doing extended paddle maneuvers and/or extended paddle rolls. There is a tremendous amount of extra leverage available, should you ever need it, just by shifting the paddle in your hands and a whole batch of very effective skills that these days are seldom taught because they don't work very well with feather angles other than zero degrees or 90 degrees. It can be very difficult to learn or to teach someone to perform these maneuvers naturally and instinctively from either side when they have to stop, think and then twist the blades at those angles to align the power face in the water. For whitewater, the only major function of extended paddle stuff is as an emergency back-up maneuver, but for touring, especially in getting maximum maneuverability from a long, straight-tracking boat they can be quite handy.

Ian, I looked at my old Prijon Leiser, which was one of the top wooden slalom racing paddles ever made. The shaft (it runs all the way through the blade, too) is spruce on either side of an ash strip. The rings on the spruce are 90 degrees to the power face and it looks like the ash strip may be cut parallel to the power face. The blade pieces seem to also have the rings more or less parallel to the face or on a slight angle, but it's hard to tell because it has beech edges and I can't see the grain there. I have no clue what the blade wood is. It almost looks like cherry, but the paddle is too light for that. It was made in Germany and maybe it's something common over there.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid107/p67cf6c0b2139bd6b9f6e4d0c1f1ffc4e/f964c360.jpg

[dmede]

Wow, you guys were busy last night ;)

Some great ideas. I need to print this thread out I think.

First off, I will not be doing any white water paddling in this canoe. It's a 15' lapstrake from Walt Simmons and will be paddled around at a respectable pace with perhaps breif moments of flat out speed, quickly ending when I run out of breath! And oh yeah, I will not be doing any rolls either.

I like the idea of scarphing the shaft to keep grain inline with the blade. And I like the idea of laminating in a smaller peice of ash for extra streangth. Since poplar is much easier to get than spruce for me I may try that trick with ash and poplar first. I really don't expect this to be the only paddle I make so if it's a POS I'll try again. Sorry about the 90* question, I realized later that every sea kayak Ive ever paddled has used 90* offset paddles and that I am very comfortable with that setup.

For those of you advocating the laminated approach, would it be better to run a thin peice of ash down the center or to sandwich some poplar with thin peices of ash on the outside?

[John Bell]

A 210 cm paddle?! Dang, Todd, you must be tall! ;)

[BRU]

dmede, Hey, I built a pair of Simmon's 15 footers a couple of years ago and you're going to love it!!! Think about a foot brace on either side to push against as you're paddling - makes life eaiser. Bru

[Todd Bradshaw]

6'4", but I think I'm shrinking as my knees fall apart from crawling around on the floor while working. Time to retire and build something where one can stand up for a change.

[FG]

Laminate with the hardest - strongest wood on the outside. Increase in strength and durability.

Hardly need to laminate if using poplar though as it is tough enough. I laminate to protect and strengthen redwood or cedar cores.

[dmede]

BRU

do you paddle them as solo's or tandems? Ive set mine up for both (sort of) by leaving the middle spreader where it is on the plans but moving the fore and aft spreaders to accomidate one person in each end and maintain trim. could be that i mucked th ewhole thing up by doing that, i hope not.

[BRU]

dmede, Mine are solo. If I recall correctly, the plans were marked where to put the back rests for a tandem setup. If you put them there I'm sure it will balance fine. Let me know how it works with 2 people - I may change one of mine. BRU

[KenC]

The tooling to cut 90 degree scarfs is pretty straight forward. I have no idea how they cut them for a 45 degree offset. I can't imagine that it'd be easy, though.Nick Schade's book "The Strip-Built Sea Kayak" has a section describing how to scarf a paddle shaft to virtually any feather angle you want.

I haven't done it, so I couldn't describe it very well, but if you have access to the book......

[almeyer]

My own perference is for a single paddle, but I did make a long double paddle out of 1-by pine for the shaft and ply blades set parallel. Cheap and cheesy, certainly not something you want to show off with a fine canoe, but it gets the job done when there's too much wind to make any headway with a single blade paddle or you just need to make some time.
I don't recommend poplar. I made a nice single blade paddle out of poplar bought from The Big Orange Box. Wanted something strong enough that I could push off when I got grounded on a bank, but light enough to use for an extended time. Had to rework it a time or two to get it as light as I wanted, and it worked great until it developed a hairline crack in the shaft. My next option was to make another paddle from a stronger wood. Wanted ash, but had to settle for red oak. It was an exact duplicate of the poplar paddle, but came out way too heavy. After some serious weight reduction, I'm pleased with it, it's lighter than the alum/fiberglass paddles now in use, will stand up to almost as much abuse, and prettier than the store bought wooden ones. For paddling on the bayou it works great. The lightest paddle I own is a bent blade. Uses a 1/4" thick piece of ash in the middle of the shaft, surrounded on either side with red cedar. The blade is 1/4" thick strips of cedar glued together. It's light as a feather, which I like, but so fragile I'm afraid to use it. I prefer a straight blade anyway. Call me old-fashioned.