Paddle 6. Orange Beavertail
Feb 12, 2024- March 10, 2024.
I went out for a walk one evening and passed by a home being renovated. They had a dumpster sitting in the driveway. I took a look. To my surprise a beautiful 2 X 10 was being thrown out. Yes it had a couple of unsightly knots, but it clearly needed rescuing. So in I went. About a month later I had a new beavertail paddle. I used my drawknife for part of the project. You can see by the picture below that there was significant tearout. A friend was kind enough to remind me that I was using the tool upside down. I'm looking forward to the next opportunity to use it correctly! I decided to give it a number of grip options including a sideways grip as an experiment. I also drilled a hole through the paddle at the grip which might be comfortable for a thumb grip--or not. I almost left the wood natural at the grip as the grain pattern was quite attractive. I was wrestling with how to get the paint on the paddle and decided to just proceed by priming it with Bulls Eye 1 2 3 by Zinsser. Once primed, I painted the entire paddle with two coats of orange. I then went through a process of using painters tape to mark off some areas for additional colour application. I finished by placing some thin black lines for an accent. I should have stopped there but I then decided to coat it with one coat of Spar Varnish. I learned that this product does not like to stick to the type of paint I used. We will see how it works out. I was very happy with the overall look of the paddle and can't wait to try it out. Wood summary:
One piece of rescued spruce. Length: 57 3/8" Weight: 2lbs, 1.9oz or 963g Max Blade Width: 6 3/4" or 17.3cm |
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