One of the blades on my home-made wooden GP padle is a little bent. May be 1/2" at the tip if I put it on a flat surface. Gradual arc from the beginning of the blade to the tip. It makes a difference in the water though not huge (flutters a little more than the other side)
Question is, since I had finished it with tung oil a couple of times already, can I still steam it and would it soften to shape it back to straight? Or would the oil prevent the wood from softening?
I can’t really afford to sand it down to clean wood - it is already too thin. This makes it very light and excellent as an exercise paddle but I would not trust it if things get hairy.
Thanks!
Try to remove the tung oil. It won’t
have penetrated very deep, and then steaming should work well enough.
go ahead
I can’t imagine there being any problem with steaming the oiled wood. The moisture is not important for softening the wood. It’s simply the heat. You can dry-bend wood using a heated metal form just as well as you can bend it in a steam box. All that matters is that you soften the lignin in the wood, so the fibers can slide past eachother.
Go for it.
Thanks
I’ll give it a try then. Just need to make a steamer rig somehow. Got a few wood board pieces lying around that I may nail together for this if I can’t find a piece of pipe that fits the blade for this…
Probably not
– Last Updated: Dec-19-08 11:00 AM EST –
I do a lot of woodworking including building furniture. Most likely what has happened is as you reshaped the wood you have (probably) released internal strain in the wood. With the excess wood removed it allowed it to move and it's probably not going to go back. You can rip boards on a table saw the see them move behind the blade. It's not uncommon at all, just part of working with wood.
Now if is just wetter on one side than the other it might straighten once it dries out. But assuming you didn't do something like leaving it laying with one face down wet or in some water, most likely your just stuck and will need to build another.
Steaming might make it softer and bendable. But your going to need to clamp it in an over bent position and let it cool. It will have some spring back too. But I have my doubts it will stay straight.
If you can get the curve where you want
it, you can probably hold it in position by glassing on a short protective zone of, say, 4 oz glass. This would not add much weight. Of course it would make sense to do both ends of the paddle, and you might want to do both sides of each blade. You would have to do a reasonable job, not of removing the tung oil, but at least rendering it more susceptible to epoxy with alcohol or acetone.
When putting on glass tips, or carbon tips (NEVER Kevlar), make sure that the upper end of the glass zones on each blade do not coincide, or there is a chance the blade will break across the glass line. I scoop my glass zones to further avoid a sharp transition in stiffness.
If you did a careful job with glass, or used carbon, you might find that the added swing weight was hardly noticeable. And, it does protect the paddle.
Glassing will need to wait
till I really decide if I like the paddle enough or I would want to improve it in some ways. And that requires me to learn to use it properly, so it will take a while -
I’ll give the steaming for 10-15 minutes and clamping to cool off a try when I get a chance. When I first made it, indeed the bend appeared our of straight wood that curved as soon as I cut it. I subsequently had it wet and let dry in a clamped position with some opposite bend, which brought it to a straight line. But soon after it regained its slightly curved shape and I just let it stay there. It does not seem to be changing anymore so I think now is a good time to see if I can give it the proper straight line on this one blade as the rest seems stable…
overbend a bit
When you clamp it, do so slightly too far, because steamed wood will relax just a touch when you release it from the clamping pressure. It’s impossible to say just how much, but I’d say if you’re bending it 5 degrees, go 2 degrees too far.
Good luck.
Don’t bother steaming it…
– Last Updated: Dec-19-08 5:22 PM EST –
...as cedar doesn't steam bend worth a darn. If you decide you want to steam it anyway, don't worry about the finish, as it's the heat from steaming that softens the wood, not the moisture. The purpose of using steam is that it provides a constant, predictable temperature and the moisture in the box helps transfer the heat to the wood faster. The moisture doesn't penetrate more than a few thousandth of an inch into the surface, even on unfinished wood.
Additionally, one thing I've noticed with cedar is that it will bend under it's own weight. I first noticed this when drying 2x4 paddle blanks prior to carving them. If I supported the center and didn't support the ends, they would droop. If I flipped it over, it would droop in the other direction in a day or so. If you lay your paddle on a flat surface with the curve upward, it will probably sag to the point of being nearly straight in a day or two. Also, if you flex it, it will take a temporary bend. Red cedar is the only wood I've seen that does this these things as rapidly as it does.
Although I do take steps to carve my paddles straight, I've never worried about them after they're done, as the shape is not constant. It will actually change slightly as you use it. I've never noticed any difference in the way a slightly curved paddle feels in the water and I suspect that you feel it only because you know the curve is there. I'll bet that if you held the paddle over your head, spun it around and twisted it in your hands so you had no idea which end was which and what direction the warp was in, you'd never be able to tell by the feel. I've done this myself and that's always been the case.
Whenever you build something yourself, you'll know "where the warts are" - and there are always warts - even if no one else can spot them. After a while, I learned to stop obsessing over building imperfections and to just enjoy the building process and the end product.
Paddle talk:
Thanks guys! A lot of my own questions answered here. I’ve only made a couple of GP’s, and have a lot to learn, but I enjoy making them almost as much as using them. Getting a good piece of wood is a major problem. WRC is just decking material, here in Florida. Any suggestion? Ken…
Look for 4x4 cedar deck posts
If you can find cedar 4x4s, you can resaw them into 2 paddle blanks. 4x4s seem to be made from larger trees than 2x4s and it’s easier to find them with nice, straight grain. Since you can resaw in either dimension, you have double the chance of getting vertical grain paddle blanks.
Lots of advice - thanks!
Mine is from what I think is pine ($10 or so for a 12’x8"x1" board at Home Depot). I managed to find two pretty much completely knot free boards some time ago and decided to use them as learning material for my first couple of paddles. As it turned out, it worked out very well. It has a lot of flex especially now that it is fairly thin bladed and is very light overall - almost certainly under 30oz. Great for long distance or exercise as it is. Strong enough to paddle as hard as I want but it may not withstand a careless push if I hold it extended all the way and put a lot of pressure on the blade as a lever for rolling lets say. And I would not sit on it either Got a spare if this happens on the water…
Scarfing
– Last Updated: Dec-21-08 7:11 PM EST –
Same problem here with cedar. We get the culls I am convinced. I have a very good relationship with the local lumber yard and I regularly go and look for a good lumber. I just buy it when I find it. Even good lumber has knots to deal with.
So, I have just given up on clear and just cut out the bad and scarf it into lengths I can use. I sometimes rip the blanks in half and add a contrasting wood strip down the center. It makes the paddle look better and helps maximize the wood by allowing me to use smaller pieces just glued up.
And Bryan's right about 4x4's. But the problem here is again, we get the culls. Usually the center of the log and that not good.