Perhaps then, you will say, "But where can one have a boat like that built today?" And I will tell you that there are still some honest men who are not scared to use hand tools, who can sharpen a saw, plane, or adze.
— L Francis Herreshoff
After cutting out with the saber saw, I square and fair
the edges with hand planes and spoke shave. You’ll always see two
planes in my pics…the #3 is set coarser than the #4, which is set
for a very fine shaving and is used
in finishing. A #5 is used ILO the #3 for longer oars. Oars are best cut
on a band saw, but you don’t really need one…just remember
that the least precise your saw,
the farther you should cut outside your lines…especially on curves…to
be finished square to the line with hand tools with no unpleasant surprises
when you turn the stock over and discover where your blade wandered.
I then use the cut and faired stock as a pattern for its mate.
The side profile or taper pattern is applied and marked on both sides
of each rough oar…
…and the power jointer set up to machine the tapers. Set the unplugged jointer to take a 16th, then index the oar against the cutter head where the penciled taper first shows a 16th on the blade side of the loom. Make a tick mark on each oar indexed against the edge of the jointer fence as your starting point.
Turn the jointer on, open the guard using a push block held in your right
hand and align the tick mark on the oar with the fence edge using your
left. Then lower the oar face onto the cutter head gently with a forward
motion, and push it through bearing down with the push block in your right
hand.
Repeat using that 16th distance between pencil line and
oar face each time, and you can taper the faces in about 8 passes per
face so cleanly that they need no further work with the hand plane. Do
a few dry runs, first, of course…. as machines can’t hear
you cry.
I make an 8-Siding Gage
lay out my tapered, square looms into octagons for planing….
…and rough out all the bevels with draw knife before finishing them
with the plane and spoke shave. Very fast and efficient…but practice
both using the drawknife in all 4 of its modes and reading grain before
committing expensive stock to it.
I finish the beveling with planes and spoke shave. I prefer to face plane
the blades first to their penciled tapers, followed by spokeshaving the
transition to its lines…
…leaving the looms for last. My final planing is
a light swipe with the #4 to remove any remaining pencil lines. The oar
button and leather will be 30 inches from the end of the handle, and I
make an abrupt transition there from 8 sides to 16 sides and finally to
an oval using spokeshave alone all the way to the transition. I prefer
my loom ends to remain 8-sided…I wouldn’t want my oars confused
with something done in a factory.
I’m careful to stay on the outside edge of my lines when beveling…and the end result is a more pleasing (and stronger) 5-7-5 ratio than a true octagon. The left oar has been drawknived but not planed…note that I rough out the handles beforehand so a slip won’t take too large a chunk in that critical area. The right oar has been planed fair and clean.
Then I finish the handles with rasps and 60-grit paper, and then sand
the oars with 60-grit on a sanding block…careful not to round over
any edges.
After the rough sanding, I wet the wood to raise the grain using a damp
towel, also raising any scratches and dents…and finish sand with
120-grit, easing all edges gently so they hold finish better. Raising
grain between grits minimizes scratching, and removes all the fuzz that
can telegraph through your finish the first time the oar gets wet.
WRC is a bit soft and splintery for use as an oar, so I
encapsulate the finished oars in epoxy prior to spar urethane varnish.
I simply brush on unthickened epoxy heated to 110 degrees with a heat
gun and allow the wood to soak up all it will take of it. Messy, and downright
ugly to sand afterwards, as the wood usually off gasses some, making bubbles
tedious to sand out….but a rock hard and strong surface to varnish
over. It doesn’t turn cedar into spruce, but these oars will likely
serve a long time.
And after a couple coats of urethane on their way to 6 or so…they are reasonably straight, fair and suitable for service.
Here's the finished product along with the boat hook for when something sturdier is required:
I like soft cotton on delicate hands doing heavy work, so I whip the handles in pure cotton twine soaked in water like the leather. Leathers are baseball-stitched and the skived button mounted with brass box-hardware tacks, making the buttons removable if required by some oarlocks.
They'll dry out and shrink up a couple days in the sun,
then I'll douse the leather in Bee Oil followed by Westco's beeswax boot
treatment. The oversize oarlocks will also be leather lined to minimize
denting of the oars.
Back Yard Yacht Builders
A non-commercial association of amateur boat-builder enthusiasts.
All our wooden boats are Stevenson designs.