Birds mouth oar plans?

[Kudzu]

Living in the land deprived of good clear boat building woods I am looking for ways to build a set of oars. Finding thick clear lumber is just not going to happen. So I am going to have to lok at laminating stock or use Birds mouth methods or???

I have seen and like the idea of birds mouth oars. I have built paddle shafts this way so I am looking for some details on the building oars. Not really a set of plans, just some of the details and sizes that work so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

I have searched the web but I can't find anything other than mention of building them.

[Dusty Yevsky]

Get in touch with Ben Louden in Montana.

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/01/...rmer/index.htm

He used to have a website but the link I have doesn't work anymore. He used to sell a set of plans for birds mouth oars for $20. Twenty pages of extremely well thought out and clear directions. Worth every penny and then some. I made a pair of sculling oars for a rec. shell and was very pleased with the result. Scroll all the way down for an address and phone #.

[Marvout]

I've had mine for about 7+ years now. They seem to be holding up well. Mine are 7'6". Shaft is 1 3/4" OD. I tapered the last 3' of the square side of the birds-mouth pieces so I would get a bit of a taper. The shafts were then glued up. I sliced off that at a slant/taper and attached a 3' x 4 1/2" wide 6mm ply blade with a bit of a curve to it. In order to make the girps, I carved out a filler piece that was twice as long as my grips were going to be, wetted it down with epoxy and shoved it into the end of the oar - filling the core of the birds-mouth in that area. Then I carved my grips just like usual.

I didn't have any plans. Just worked backwards from my oarlocks and sized everything appropriately.

Marvin

[Jimbo2004]

see these links, I'm doing a pair over the winter.

http://sports.webshots.com/album/366127989OQvvXQ

http://www.bateau.com/free/simple_oars.html

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=10036

http://www.collars.co.uk/downloads/Spoon_Oars.pdf


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