Paddles and Oar

Today didn't feel like I got much done on Shan Skailyn. I'm mostly working on all the peripheral stuff these days. Anyway, I managed to get a second paddle done. I really like the wood used for the blade on this most recent one (the lighter colored one in the picture). It's much lighter and straight grained than the other stuff I used. The other one looks like rosewood, but feels too light to be rosewood. The other stuff was a major pain to plane down because of the irregular grain. I will definitely be making the third paddle out of this lighter weight straight grained stuff.

I also laminated up some strips which will eventually be the oar paddle. I'm planning on having the oar, mostly as a back up in case the rudder fails. Not sure what length will be needed. Gary recommends 8' to 10' oars for his boats, or "generally half the length of the boat". So I went ahead and made a 10' long oar handle. You can always make it short, but not longer. It seems like I chose a fairly heavy wood for this handle. Not sure how I feel about that. At this point I don't have a whole lot to choose from, especially when I'm looking for 10' length. I could have made it all from one solid piece, but the wood I have isn't quarter sawn or anything special that will make it more stable. Often, once you cut into this stuff it bends on you. So I cut strips out of the same piece, alternated the grain direction between each piece and laminated it that way. Should be much more stable, and much stiffer that way. Not sure how thick of a handle I'm going to make. Gary's book shows as thick as 1-13/16". Since this is a heavier wood, I'm kind of thinking of going closer to 1-1/2" to cut down on weight, and hoping the wood is strong enough... no clue on the type of wood, by the way. I have a 2-1/4" brass oarlock on the way for which I don't want to undersize the handle too much. One downside to laminating 5 strips together is that it uses a lot of glue! I think I used nearly a quarter bottle of titebond III. Yeah, that's what I'm using for the paddles and other peripherals... hardly have any epoxy left and no moolah in the budget for more. So I'm saving what I have just in case I need to glass a bit more or glue something that is actually part of the boat.