Shopping Op

Hey Everyone,

I had a chance to go to the Outdoor Adventure Show this weekend and picked up a few thing. My favorite thing bought was a crooked knife from Canadian outdoor equipment .  The crooked knife is the traditional woodworking tool of the First nations and Inuit . Its like a one handed draw knife that is used in one hand as you hold the paddle with the other hand. 
  
I also picked up Badgers paddle and Gunnel Oil which is 100% All Natural Hemp Oil that has no harsh fumes and is even food safe. I'm excited to finish the next paddle with this finish and possible even a cutting board which i plan to glue together some extra pieces together to make one. 


Lastly i bought a piece of Elk antler (sold as a dog chew) from Urban Dog Products. I am not sure if i should use this one of the knife blades i had from before or if i should save it and make a crooked knife of my own. It does have a very nice feel in the hand, so either choice it will be pretty good. When i was at the booth the guys told me someone had bought a piece to be the tip of a paddle, which i thought would be interesting.


Thanks for reading

Pyrogrpahy - Black Capped Chickadees

Hey Everyone,

Had a chance to do a bit more Pyrography work over the past few days. I picked a pattern from Sue Walters book . To transfer the pattern to the wood i printed it out on a laser jet printer (ink jet doesn't work ) flipped it over so ink was touching the wood and took a clothes iron to the back of the paper. The heat melts the ink and the ink sticks to the paper.

This piece came together pretty quick !

Hope you enjoy!

Pyrography - Eagle (Part 2)

Had a day off today because I'm the lucky one that gets to work all weekend, so I did a little bit of work on the Eagle (finished it actually).

I continued the shading the feathers, but this time I switched the tip I was using to a medium shading spoon.  While doing the feathers, I would shade a thicker line on the outside of my original line to add a shadow and create layers among the feathers.

I dotted just underneath the eye using the skew tip to make tiny dots. I then uses a thicker tip to put a darker outline among the dots. Finally, I added a few thin hairs.

I lightly shaded lines among the beak at select parts; I was luckily enough to be able to study my African grey parrot's beak for this.  

For the eye I shaded it in using different levels of heat, especially the iris  (light heat). I then took a knife and scraped the tip across parts to ensure there were no blotches in this very important spot (can make or break your piece).  Last but not least I scraped a "glint" into the eye to bring it to life.

And that's it!

Start

Finished

                            ->

Hudson Bay Voyageur - Maple

Rough grip with Heartwood

Hey everyone ,

Started on a paddle early last week and got on a roll this weekend. The paddles shaped and sanded but I'm not sure how I'm going to finish it. I spoke in my last post about a painted shaft but not sure if this is the paddle for it.

 First time working with maple and i like it ! Its Hardwood and its a bit heavier than i thought it would be. This board had a little piece of darker heartwood running through the middle giving it a great look down the center of the grip and shaft. 


I tried a different grip and found that this design was a lot of fun to carve, looks pretty and feels great when holding onto the paddle.

Blank

Electric planner makes quick work

When i started the blank this time, i was careful to stay an 1/8 of an inch outside the line i drew for the blank. I have a cheapy band saw and find it wanders a lot. The last few paddles i would end up cutting in to close, this time i cut outside and used the stationary belt/disc sander to true it to the line.

Since i sanded out the edges,  i ended up with a smooth blank, if the blanks wavy then the shaft may be as well.

I unfortunately knicked the side of the blade so had to thin it just a touch more then the design called for, resulting in a thin paddle blade that was already thin enough. 

Then this should be a Muskrat tail not a Voyageur!

So decisions, decisions , decisions.....

Do i paint the shaft and still get the heartwood on the grip, wood burning something onto it (still not that comfortable with the shading skill yet tho), paint on the blade or leave it be and seal it with oil or poly.

Let me know what you think ! and Thanks for visiting.

If this is a beaver tail

And this is an Ottertail

White Water - Padauk and Ash (Part 2)

After what seems like forever, I am finally done this paddle.

After my last post I was still unhappy with a lot of attributes of the paddle. Still was to heavy (even for a white water paddle) and it seemed bulky.

With that begin said I planned a lot more off the blade taking time not to rip a chuck out at this stage. I then took it to the stationary belt sander to thin down the spots that the planner wasn't getting. I find that the electric planner leaves it thinner at the tip and thicker where it ramps up to the shaft.

I also was not happy with the feel of the grip. The original pieces of Padauk and Ash were two inches think, which ment the grip was huge. Toot it to the belt sander as well and thinned it down . When you creating this T grip the best thing to do is to use the belt sander to get a shape on the top of the grip. Then use a thin strip of 50 sandpaper hook it under the T and grab the ends in different hands, then pull back and forth on it ( hope this makes sense) . I found it shaped the grip faster then the rasp.

Whole Paddles like this

I also went back and with the spoke shave and took more off the shaft. Since its Ash you can really thin it's down a lot well still retaining strength.

I didn't want to put a pattern on the blade (thought it would take away from the laminated process) but it still looked a bit to plain . I had heard that Padauk was used for dye and remembering that blue ash paddle from before I got an idea. I took a wet rag and opened up the shop vac with the red dust and rubbed the rag in it. I took the rag and rubbed it against the grain. The red dust got caught in only deep grain pattern of the ash giving this amazing effect ( see pic ) without the need for stain.

I gave the paddle a final few sandings working with a finer sandpaper each time. When finished the sanding process, it was on to the finish.

I heard that Padauk can loose its color if you don't use a uv inhibitor. I bought some teak oil ( said uv inhibitor right on the label ) and applied it. Very quick and easy to use.

Hope you enjoyed !

Now on to the next paddle, I have a plan to do a very original painted shaft. More to follow once I get over this cold !

Pyrography - Eagle

Penciled in 

Been working with both my white water canoe paddle and the new Pyrography hobby lately .

I started on a live cut round of Basswood with a Eagle. I recently got a few more shading tips in the mail, so I'll be working on getting shading down pat before moving to the paddles.

Halfway Shaded 

Outlined

Getting the design on and outlining it with the skewer tip was easy . Once moving on to shading the feathers, thats where it got difficult. I found that it was hard to get a consistent color when shading, I would often get patches that were darker.


Only halfway through but thought I would share so far.

Part 2 is available here

White Water - Padauk and Ash

Hey Everyone,

Blank

I have been working on my my first laminated paddle. This is the first part of the post, because its seems to be taking me forever. I picked up some a strip of nice Padauk  and a some Ash (Heavy woods) . I combined the wood using some marine grade glue and clamped it for 24 hrs and the added on the next layer and repeated.

Planned Blade

I wanted to try a new type of paddle, something completely different from what i have done. I went with a whitewater paddle, because there was tons of wood to work with width wise.

Cutting the inside of the inside of the T shaped grip was very hard to do on the bandsaw (whole T grip styles a lot of work) . I have been touching it up with the rasp trying to get rid of the blade marks, its coming along slowly but surely.

VERY Rough Grip

Ash is a very grainy wood to work with not as enjoyable as Walnut or other woods. I found that the Padauk is same feel as the Walnut when carving it. The shaft Ash piece was 2 inches by 2 inches so  getting it down to a size i am happy with, while keeping the weight down and strength up is an ongoing challenge.

Semi Shaped grip

The other thing to note if you decided to work with Padauk is that its very sensitive to UV rays. UV rays will turn it a warm brown, unless finished with a UV ray inhibiting finish. We will get to this later on though when i get there. 

All and all i think the paddles slowly coming together nicely but its taking a bit longer then the previous ones because i find myself becoming a bit more of a perfectionist. Shafts shaped and rounded, blades planned down, grips roughed in and finish is picked out.

Part 2 of this post is now available