Greenland paddle

This project is from several years ago, but was worth putting into the same blog as the DIY canoe build.  

My father is an avid canoer and tried making a Greenland paddle from a 2x4.  It worked, but left a lot to be desired in both structure and finish.  I once built a CNC router in the garage, so figured it could produce a wooden paddle.

Experimentation started with a foam blank. I clamped it to the spoil board and cut out the first side with a roughing pass and then a horizontal finishing pass.

Since my CNC can only cut 48in length, the paddle would be made using three flips and four identical operations.  

The handle in the middle would be the trickiest for alignment.  In this foam test piece, I incorrectly trimmed "off" at the end.

The tip end keeps a tab to maintain some structure on the last cut.

This picture shows the flip, how the now lower half stands proud of the table and uses the same clamps.

Onward to wood!  Specifically, starting with a $3 piece of 2x4 pine to verify the process and stiffness using real material.  The first cut started strong

 


 
The second side and subsequent flips started out okay, but then went wrong.  The sides had awkward slivers that vibrated and did not support themselves.  I missed the length and left a block in the middle of the handle.  It was a mess. 
 
 


After several adjustments to the CAM and setup, I tried another 2x4.




We took a trip to Capitol City Lumber in Raleigh to buy a piece of glorious cedar.  Some random dude is in my picture.

Finally, time to cut the cedar... which was more of the same.  The cedar grain cut nicer than the 2x4, but it was still dusty.  In hindsight, cutting from the middle of the cedar would have been easier than trimming off of the side like is shown.  But, the center lined up reasonably nicely and a little block sanding made the joint disappear.  After a bit of final sanding over the whole paddle, three generous soaking coatings of tung oil and the paddle was finished.





This paddle was a gift.  Perhaps I should revisit a molded carbon over foam version to match the lightweight nature of the airolite canoe.

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