Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own

Product Description

Despite the growing interest in making paddles and canoes, it is difficult to find reliable information for that craft. For the how-to beginner, a paddle represents the perfect challenge, both finite and functional. For the skilled woodworker, the opportunity to experiment with design and technique to create a tailor-made product that perfectly suits a paddler's needs is a dream come true.

About the Book

In Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own, longtime canoeist and woodworker Graham Warren provides detailed information and guidance to make a canoe paddle that will be used with confidence and cherished for generations. The book is thoroughly illustrated with photographs, line drawings and plans with measurements for:

• How to make a paddle having a single blade, a bent shaft, or double blades;
• How to protect a paddle with oil or varnish;
• What to look for when test-driving a paddle;
• How to decorate a paddle;
• How to care for and repair a paddle.

Additional Coverage

The book also covers:

• Paddle design - grips, shaft, blade, flexibility, weight, balance;
• Paddle woods and adhesives;
• Hand tools, power tools and homemade tools, carving and finishing tools;
• Making the paddle - size, design, mark out, cut and carve;
• Paddle plans, including Beavertail, Voyageur, Algonquin, Whitewater, Bent-shaft, Double-blade, Child's;
• Templates for grips, tips and blades;
• Materials sources.

Special Features

The authors include an appreciation of the evolution of the paddle plus a special chapter by renowned canoe-building teacher David Gidmark, which celebrates paddle-making in the native American tradition.