After a lifetime of building solid wood oars last year I switched to laminating and haven’t looked back. Laminating makes for a more economical use of the wood, it lets you double check the shaft for straightness before you get deeply committed into shaping that oar, it makes it easier to shape the shaft...
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Video: Oar building, part 2
Second video in the oar building series. I like to shape my oar handles at the beginning of the process because it’s easier to do when the shaft is still square and it saves me from the potential horror of a poorly shaped handle on a beautiful finished oar. Handles can be a bit...
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Video: Oar building, part 1
As we get started again on the oar building class I’m going to repost the first few videos so the series is continuous in the feed. Making this class has been a lot more challenging than I thought. Aside from the boneheaded mistake of shooting for an entire afternoon with the mic off and...
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Video: Early morning rowing tests
After this morning’s appallingly early 5am rowing test (to catch the right light for video) I think I have the info I need to start on the next generation of outriggers and oars. I’m finding that with the outrigger mounted conveniently at the rear seat hanging block location the boat hunts just a bit....
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New set of oars
This new set of oars is based on the grant pattern for an Adirondack guide boat with a bunch of modifications. To make the best use of precious materials and also to select for different properties in different parts of the oar I start with a Sitka spruce shaft which gets mostly shaped before...
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Well, that’s a kick in the n**ts
Well, that’s a kick in the n**ts. We filmed a big portion of the oar building class yesterday only to realize at the end of the day that the microphone wasn’t working. Sooooo, back to the store for another hundred dollars worth of Sitka, another 70 bucks and bronze hardware, and I’m building three...
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Video: Just a couple quick clips from the rowing test of the new canoe
Just a couple quick video clips from the rowing test of the new canoe. Here you can see the massive difference in thrust between paddling a canoe and rowing one. Kind of a neat evening on the water, pouring rain, a huge double rainbow and a single flash of lightning and thunder clap. Now...
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A quick report from our test row of the largest canoe
I’m a little short on time to put together a video post today, but I wanted to throw up a quick report from our test row of the largest canoe of the triple nesting set. The short answer here is that this thing had us grinning from ear to ear the second we put...
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Spent the afternoon making a simple rowing outrigger for the new canoe
Spent the afternoon making a simple rowing outrigger for the new canoe. The geometry on this is actually a bit trickier than you would think to get all the appropriate clearances in all the right places. Like everything I make, I designed this to be simple, inexpensive, easy to build, and easily removable and...
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On YouTube: Could Rubio Monocoat be the perfect finish for a Greenland paddle?
Over many years of teaching people to build skin on frame kayaks I developed a fast, easy system for building Greenland paddles (now available as a FREE hour long video on the our site), but as great as the system is, I’ve never really liked any of the many different coatings I’ve tried over...
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Building a Greenland paddle
I literally can’t explain why I don’t like making Greenland paddles. It’s easy work, pays well, and I really believe that my shape is superior to most of what’s out there, but for whatever reason I’m just sick of making them. After 15 years of making about one of these a week I finally...
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Day 19, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer
Day 19, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer. Build time: 5hrs. Finished the replacement oars today bringing the total time for this pair down to 8 hrs, which is an acceptable amount of time. Loving the spruce looms with ash blades, seems like a perfect marriage of weight, strength and toughness. This pair weighs a bit over 3lbs...
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Day 18, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer
Day 18, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer. Build time: 5hrs. Started working on the replacement oars today, 7’2” long this time. I decided to go for a spruce shaft and laminated ash blades. This gives me a light oar that’s tough in the right places without having to get fiberglass and epoxy involved. I did all my...
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Day 17, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer
Day 17, Skin-on-frame rower-sailer. Build time 3 hrs. In the 3 days I’ve been varnishing Jared is almost halfway done with a new pair of pack canoes. This clearly shows just how much strings, foils, spars, and a gaggle of shiny bits add cost and time to a build. By the time I’m done...
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Just to be 1000% clear, I am in no way endorsing this madness. But it does work….
Just to be 1000% clear, I am in no way endorsing this madness. But it does work.......