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DIY square top oars

91K views 244 replies 33 participants last post by  cupido76 
#1 ·
Let me preface this thread to everyone who had planned to post "just get out your check book". I'm not listening. Fingers firmly in ears, "LALALALA." If I wanted to buy oars, I would have already bought them.

I have two sets of Doug Fir oars. I made the transition 14 years ago to the dark side of rafting as a dirtbag kayaker who had kids. I never owned Carlisles. I had a pro deal on Cataracts, but they hurt my shoulders. I originally made wood spares, and the Cataracts became my spares and the wood oars became my regulars. I have They were/are 10' long, 2-piece laminated shafts, laminated blades, ash blade edges, ash spline through the tip to bond the laminates together horizontally, and 3-4 layers of fiberglass on the tips with a rope wrap. Original finish was linseed oil, but it sucked. They currently get varnished every 4-5 years. Last iteration was fully sanded down to bare wood, epoxy saturated, and spar varnished. They have dings and battle scars, and I love them.


I bought a 13' boat 7 or so years ago, and then made a set of 9.5' oars for it. Shafts slightly larger diameter, and blades thinner than the originals. They have also held up beautifully. One had a bit of grain runout in the shaft and broke just below the rope wrap. Lesson learned. Fortunately I made 3 at the time, so I wasn't out completely on the set.

Which brings me to this post. Anyone else ever build their own square tops or wood oars? The only thing I don't completely love about my woodies is the lack of counterbalance. I love the flex of the shaft, I love that the blades float when I drop the handles, I love that the entire oar floats if dropped overboard. I just want a bit of counterbalance.

So...if you've built your own square tops, would you go even bigger than the ~2.5" on top that Sawyer uses?

Have you done carbon fiber wrap? Is it worth it, or does it make them too stiff? Do you get splinters from the CF if it gets dinged?

Preferred handle shape? Mine are all ~6" long, 1 1/8" OD. Anyone ever build tapered handles? Taper inward or outward? Barrel-shaped like carlisles?
 
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#138 ·
Quarantined and ran out of interesting things to watch on Netflix and Youtube. So I got bored.

Crazy things happen when I got bored.

As I'd noted way earlier in the thread, I built my oldest 10' oars in 2004. they got thinned down in early 2018, got squaretops and yet thinner blades in fall 2018. One trip on the Main Salmon and that was about the extent of their v3.0 life. I was determined with the advent of my dory to stop rowing with OarRights, and rowed unfeathered the whole trip. The oars always had 1 1/4" diameter handles.

My 9.5' oars were built in about 2010? They also got their blades thinned and got squaretops in 2018. They had an odd tapered handle..I owe it to being a little too zealous in my use of a drawknife and peeling them down too small. They were 1 1/4" dia at the oar loom, and only 1 1/8" out at the tip. Never was a problem with OarRights, but without, I found it was way too small of diameter to grasp...and also found I now disliked the gloss varnish finish.

I used a horseshoe rasp to make sure the old handles were totally cylindrical and ground off the old varnish/epoxy. I then epoxied on sheets of 1/16" ash veneer to wrap around the handle in layers. Cut the veneer slightly longer than the circumference of the handle...the circumference of the sheet is roughly the inner circumference plus the thickness of the veneer times Pi. (or add a -1/8" haha)

Each layer added 1/8" (1/16" x 2) to the handle diameter. I found that the old veneer (it was 20+ years old) was quite brittle and cracked as I bent it...and yet it wouldn't evenly conform. I ended up "breaking" it every 1/4" over the edge of my table saw using a stiff block of wood to make it break evenly. these cracks allowed it to conform well to the curvature of the handle.

After I wrapped the ooey-gooey mess, I'd wrap that with electrical tape (cheap at Harbor Freight, and epoxy doesn't stick to it). Then that wasn't tight enough, so I bound the whole thing tigthly with some copper wire to keep the ash lying flat. Threw a heater on it overnight, then unwrapped the tape and used the horseshoe rasp to knock off the high spots, adjusting each to keep the handle cylindrical. The inner layers didn't have to be pretty, but they couldn't have any high spots that would telegraph their way through upper layers.

The weird cone handle on the 9.5' oars got a half wrap to bring the smaller diameter up to 1 1/4", then it got three full wraps to take the total up to 1 5/8".

The 10' oar handles got 3 full wraps to take it to 1 5/8". The final layer got cracked 3/16" or 1/4" as tight as I could get it so no large cracks would show in the final wrap. I also added some radiator hose clamps to get a couple tighter where the wood wouldn't conform.

I will give them a final sanding tonight.
 

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#139 ·
Oh, and I put a 1 1/4" x 1 5/8" oval on my dory oar handles. As a longtime kayaker, I thought an oval would be cool...but then I found that it was unstable. By pushing or pulling on the narrow end of the oval, it wanted to "trip" and roll in my hand. So, those needed to get rounded.

I stuck with Doug fir since the exposed parts of the handle were still fir.

They also got painted an accent stripe of "Proper Dory Color" Willys Beryl Green.

have one pair to rope wrap.

Oh, and that's my foundry in the background. Still fighting it to get hot enough to cast bronze.
 

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#140 ·
Oh, and that's my foundry in the background. Still fighting it to get hot enough to cast bronze.

Try adding O2 to the propane (get an adaptor for your regulator), and if you want it really hot, switch from propane to propolyne, a much higher purity gas..



A rosebud tip would help, mine is a 250K btu..
 
#143 ·
Throw stoichiometry out the window!

Back to oar handles:
Sand off the rough spots with a strip of super coarse 36-grit belt


Sanded down, the grain looks really cool.



More sanding, and rounded the shoulders on the square tops



Rounded over the handles 1/8"


End view of the ash strips wrapped around the Fir core. First set of oars I turned my scraps into a spare shaft (left)...still going strong 16 years later.



Added an epoxy fillet at the shoulder and epoxy on the endgrain of the handles (and filled the pinholes). i will leave the handle wood bare for now to see how I like the grip. Had to fill a couple of cracks, but will sand the epoxy down so it's not slick.
 

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#144 ·
Sooo, I'm missing how the relationship between the relative quantities of substances taking part in a reaction or forming a compound, typically a ratio of whole integers relates to my post ??? O2 and LPG? perhaps I'm dense, but I'm not seeing it LOL


Maybe I'm just bored....
 
#145 ·
Hey all,

I’ve just spent the morning catching up on this entire thread. I’m excited to have found it because I’m in the process of building my own solid ash whitewater oars for my 13’ raft. Thanks very much for sharing your collective knowledge!

Stelz, those refinished blades look sharp... I don’t envy the material removal you got to do though!

MT4, clever work with the ash veneer on the handles! How’d the walnut squaretops turn out? Or did I miss those photos?

For my oars I’m starting at 9’6” but may shorten them up. I just got into rafting two years ago so I’ve got a bit to learn. Any suggestions regarding length for a 13’ aire?

I started with 9’7” x 6” chunks of ash in 12/4... lots of cutoff, but also lots of good scrap for other projects. I got one oar mostly roughed out and found a crack running down the center for a couple of feet, which bummed me out. I figure I’ll probably fill it and wrap it in a glass sleeve.

I’m starting shaping, and so far my lines have stayed straight, which is cool. Any gotchas/recommendations as I get into the process?
 
#146 ·
Stelz, those refinished blades look sharp... I don’t envy the material removal you got to do though!

Go as thin as possible on the blades. You're not going to break blades with water pressure. only rocks. You need reinforcement at the tips (for rocks), but the edges can be as thin as 3/16".


For my oars I’m starting at 9’6” but may shorten them up. I just got into rafting two years ago so I’ve got a bit to learn. Any suggestions regarding length for a 13’ aire?

I started with 9’7” x 6” chunks of ash in 12/4... lots of cutoff, but also lots of good scrap for other projects. I got one oar mostly roughed out and found a crack running down the center for a couple of feet, which bummed me out. I figure I’ll probably fill it and wrap it in a glass sleeve.

I’m starting shaping, and so far my lines have stayed straight, which is cool. Any gotchas/recommendations as I get into the process?
Grain runout is a bugger. If you have a crack now, it's a potential crack later. Tough thing about ash is that there's less and less straight material to be had..and it also frost-checks. IMHO, clear, straight grain is pretty, but laminated with a couple glue joints so the grain reinforces its neighbor is stronger/more reliable.

Tips: lighten the hell out of the blades. Lighten the hell out of the lower shafts. You need an oval. You don't need much shaft width in the plane of the blade. You do need shaft depth perpendicular to the blade where the force is.

Try to get your shafts perfectly cylindrical at the oarlocks. Don't worry about weight here, it does nothing for or against you.

On the tops, go as heavy as possible. Still, a good squaretop only has 1/2 the amount of felt load as lightening the blades (since they're 2x as far from the oarlock).

Did I mention lightening the blades?? I took my favorite old standby 10' oars and thinned the blades down to about 5/16" and the edges are maybe 3/16" thick. Tips are probably 1/2" thick reinforced with fiberglass. These oars are beautiful to row with. Even lighter than my dory oars which are probably 1/8" thicker through the blades..noticeably heavier.



next favorite are my buddy's with the cedar core blades...and did I mention lightweight blades?



9'-6" is a good starting length for a 13' raft. You may go down to 9', but definitely not shorter than that. Really depends on your frame width, rowing style, and wingspan. If you row technical, burly water, you will want a shorter oar both so it doesn't hit rocks as easily and so you have more leverage against the water. If you row more flatwater and find yourself rowing for hull speed, you will appreciate the "gearing" of a slightly longer (9'-6") oar. You can easily cut them down. Harder to make them longer (but not impossible!)



MT4, clever work with the ash veneer on the handles! How’d the walnut squaretops turn out? Or did I miss those photos?
The walnut tops turned out gorgeous. Edit: sorry, forgot to attach the pic. The walnut was a single piece of 5/4 that I cut in half, then resawed each half into 4 pieces. Each oar is bookmatched from one side to the other, and all 4 oars are from a single side of that board. "Waste not, want not", but they also turned out incredibly "matchy-matchy"!!
 

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#149 ·
Oh my, those walnut squaretops are incredible.

You guys are heroes, thanks for the info. I primarily row whitewater on the narrow rocky rivers in NW WA, so I’ll probably just start with 9’ or so; my current aluminum oars are also 9’ and seem fine.

I know you said skinny blades, but man, 3/16 is thin... it’s mentally taxing to keep taking material off at that point. Stresses me out. But, they feel pretty damn strong. I’ve got some Kevlar for the tip. Do you think I should glass the whole blade? I figure it shouldn’t be necessary with ash, but I don’t know.

I decided to take both of your advice and use my cutoffs to make a third oar (yes, there’s that much extra!) Gonna be a little adventure and a lot of gluing, but I like the idea.

Thanks again.
 

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#150 ·
Oh my, those walnut squaretops are incredible.

You guys are heroes, thanks for the info. I primarily row whitewater on the narrow rocky rivers in NW WA, so I’ll probably just start with 9’ or so; my current aluminum oars are also 9’ and seem fine.

Yeah, roll with it. If 9' works for your boat, and that's what you're used to, then no reason to change.


I know you said skinny blades, but man, 3/16 is thin... it’s mentally taxing to keep taking material off at that point. Stresses me out. But, they feel pretty damn strong. I’ve got some Kevlar for the tip. Do you think I should glass the whole blade? I figure it shouldn’t be necessary with ash, but I don’t know.

Mine are all fir. I've never glassed the blades. It's really the very tips and maybe up 3" on the edges that collect rock dings.

Way back in this thread, mine were all a 1/2-5/8" radius and the blades got thicker from there. They were HEAVY! I ran them that way for 15 years. Also consider I was like 30 when I first made them and I was younger and stronger. Now I'm 45 and I appreciate a more carefully tuned oar. Not that I wouldn't have noticed then, but I definitely notice now!


My 10' oars are 3/16" and I LOVE LOVE LOVE to row them.

My 9.5' oars are about 1/4" at the edges and thicker from there..and I like them, but wish they were lighter. Tips are still a fat 5/8" with 3 generations of glass coverage (I just kept adding).


I'm also in the NW, but the Lochsa isn't that shallow, and the MF Flathead isn't that narrow..but can get shallow spots.


If 3/16" is wigging you out, you can ALWAYS go thinner, but it's hard to add thickness.


I decided to take both of your advice and use my cutoffs to make a third oar (yes, there’s that much extra!) Gonna be a little adventure and a lot of gluing, but I like the idea.

Thanks again.
Absolutely do that. My 3rd oar in my first set was made of scraps. #4 of my dory oars is made of scraps and you can see the scarf joint in the blade.

it takes very little extra work to make another oar. A lot of the time spent is setting up saws or waiting for glue or varnish to dry. If it takes me 35 hours to make 2 oars, it probably takes me 40 hrs to make 3 oars.
 
#151 ·
I didn't want plastic oar stops on the dory. They're noisy and mechanical and black and clunky. looking at my oars/oarlocks, a plastic oar stop is almost 3/4" high, where you only need 1/2-5/8" at the lock to keep the oar from shipping overboard.

So..figured some canvas micarta would have a more organic look. Plus, brown duck canvas when wet is nearly the same color as my brown stained rope wraps. Let's get started!

I used a piece of heavy 1.5" poly pipe (epoxy doesn't stick to polyethylene) as a mandrel. Poly pipe generally has a curve overall, and it also gets squished into somewhat of an oval cross-section. I cut a piece of wood into an octagon that would fit inside to make the outside both straight and circular.





Next we cut up a bunch of canvas. I think I had (4) pieces of the old BDU camo...~24" x 8", and (6) pieces of brown duck the same size.


The poly pipe mandrel was wrapped with a strip of poly sheeting so it wouldn't stick too closely. Even though epoxy doesn't stick to poly, it would still be cured with a tight friction fit. The poly sheeting gives me a little more "wiggle room" to get the tube out. If I did a one-off, I could always saw it out, but I figure if I wanted to make more that I'd need the mandrel again...so the bond breaker layer.






Epoxy. Mixed up 4 oz initially. Would have been enough for this area of fiberglass; didn't realize how "thirsty" the canvas was. haha. Ended up using this x 3 (12oz total).

I travel a bit for work and save up my plastic room cards. It makes a great epoxy spreader.





Then both hands got messy and the phone stayed out of the way. I mixed 2 more batches of epoxy and squeegeed it onto the fabric. I didn't need epoxy "standing" on the surface of the fabric, but I did need it all wet out enough that the fabric changed color.

I'd literally roll the mandrel across the wet cloth and roll up the next layer of cloth. I pushed down pretty hard and gave the tube a couple extra rolls across the plastic sheeting drop cloth on the floor to tighten the layers.

when it was all wound on, then I wrapped the whole thing tightly with electrical tape. I really like vinyl electrical tape because 1) it doesn't stick to epoxy and b) it is stretchy and applies continuous pressure to the substrate. If I had used blue painter's tape, it doesn't apply pressure beyond its original tightness. Then put it in a tent with a small space heater to cure it overnight.




I unwound the electrical tape. Seemed the saturation of the canvas was about perfect. Could have had a bit of squeeze-out, so this tells me I may have some air bubbles, but not enough to lose sleep over.






The mandrel popped right out of the tube. The plastic sheeting bond breaker worked awesome.





Really happy with the way this turned out.





then I sliced off the scrap on the end and hit it on the disc sander.





The brown duck turned out really similar color to the stain I put on the rope wraps (same "rosewood" water-based stain I used on the meranti side panels of my boat).

 

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#152 ·
So..figured some canvas micarta would have a more organic look. Plus, brown duck canvas when wet is nearly the same color as my brown stained rope wraps. Let's get started!
..
Really happy with the way this turned out.
..
The brown duck turned out really similar color to the stain I put on the rope wraps (same "rosewood" water-based stain I used on the meranti side panels of my boat).
Maybe I missed something but how do you get that onto the shaft over the square tops?
 
#155 ·
Thank you sir! Spent way too much time 15 years ago on that 4x4 forum that noahfecks, Electric-Mayhem, and bgillespie would recognize, so I got used to "forum storytelling".

Really happy with how this proof of concept turned out. I drilled the holes from both sides, then used a 3/8" forstner bit to counterbore it. had a hard time gouging out enough space for the #12 SS machine nut..but my holes were tight enough that the micarta held the bolt.


one bolt hole has a slight crack between the canvas plies, so I'm thinking I need a bit more epoxy or a bit more pressure in subsequent layups. Overall I'm happy with this first step.
 

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#157 ·
Dude those oar stops are awesome. Nice work.

Was gonna go raft the Sauk today, but warm rain has all the rivers around here flooding, so instead I was able to get a bunch of work done today!

I’ve got my two oars shaped pretty close to what I want. Haven’t started on the third yet because I’m currently without a table saw, but hoping to rectify that soon.

The blades are “pretty thin,” according to my eyeballs and thumb and forefinger. Haven’t measured it yet.

I figure next step is final shaping, then finish sanding, then epoxy. I’m going to reinforce the shaft from the paddle up to the wrap with light fiberglass, mainly to prevent/mitigate running cracks.

Progress is fun.
 

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#158 ·
Got em glassed up, added a little bit of character to the blades, and first coat of varnish. Had a bit of trial and mostly error with the tip reinforcements... Couldn’t get a clean U-shape, so I just left it off for now.

Any pointers? I tried a rough Kevlar/Carbon weave as well as a light glass, but had a pretty hard time with both.
 

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#159 ·
Well it’s been a bit. I took the oars out for two laps on the Wenatchee earlier this summer, and they felt great. Problem was the finish was still a little soft, and I also put a temporary wrap on them for that trip. They performed wonderfully, but the finish obviously got beat up, and that running crack I thought I had addressed cane back to bite me... even though I couldn’t see it, the weak part continued through the blade and resulted in a longitudinal crack halfway up the blade. (Nothing to do with the thin blades, which I am SO happy with... nice and light swing weight, thanks MT4Runner!)

So! I stripped the wraps, sanded the finish off, glassed the blades, and reinforced the tips with canvas from an old pair of carhartt shop pants. I refinished with Epifanes varnish. I also sanded the handles down to the wood, and refinished them with TruOil (Gun stock finish... total dream to work with)

Here they are, fully wrapped and finished. Some blotchiness from not being thorough enough at removing the original finish coat, but oh well. They’re ready for the Rogue in October!
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#162 ·
Thanks much! Yeah I figure the carhartt should be nice and durable.

The blades are 3/4” thick below the shoulder and 1/2 at the tip. You can see the one on the right is a bit thinner at the shoulder... accidentally got carried away shaping, but I’m overall happy with how they turned out. I got to compare them to my buddy’s new smoker WW blades and was initially bummed out- those things are STOUT. But, just like you said, these are plenty strong in the right dimension.
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#166 · (Edited)
Hey y’all. I’m working through building my first set of oars and I just rounded out the shafts at 1 7/8” tapering to 1 3/4”. I don’t want to go smaller because of my design for a coupling for interchangeable blades, and they currently have just slightly less flex than my Sawyer polecats which I’m ok with. My question is; is it standard practice to add glass cloth to the whole shaft? I don’t want to make them stiffer, but if cloth is advised for strength, I don’t want to skip that.
 
#170 ·
Hey Matt,

The only reason I glassed the oars was because one of them had an inherent running crack for 2/3 its length that I didn't find until shaping. If the grain had been clean, I'd have left them unglassed. That being said, they're wonderfully responsive with plenty of whip. For the epoxy on the wraps, I bought two-part general purpose epoxy from Ace. It comes in a black tube, and its working state is a thick peanut-butter consistency.

I'm curious to see your interchangeable blade system. How are you planning to make it work?
 
#171 ·
Thanks y’all.

I have ordered the Sawyer oar extenders to fit on the end. It will slide onto the end (epoxied on of course) so that my blades can be swapped and changed. I’ll take the female part out that it comes with so that it’s just a tube which will slide over the end of my oar blank.
 
#174 ·
I have a very small crack in one of the oars that will be under the coupling. I plan to fill it with epoxy, give it one wrap with 2 oz cloth, and epoxy on the coupling.

Other than that, my other wood working projects have taught me the importance of sealing the ends while working. This fir, even if kiln dried, will change after its cut. The wood will change most near the fresh cut end, so sealing it (I seal the ends with 2 heavy coats of tite bond III) will prevent the checking and cracks from forming at the end while you work on your peice before it gets epoxy
 
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