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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 I originally made wood spares, and the Cataracts became my spares and the wood oars became my regulars.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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#2 ·
I have been thinking about making my own wood oars for a while. The sets you did make did you turn them on a lathe or had carve? I have some ash i got from a friend laying around that just need to be put to a good purpose.
 
#4 ·
I laminated the fir close to my final dimensions and rounded the shafts off from there. No lathe, that would be a long length to support and keep straight, and also a bit dangerous with the blade spinning out there on the end.

A hand power planer was invaluable to round off to shaft and shape the blades. Random orbital sander to smooth it all up.


14yold 10' oar on top, newer 7yo 9.5' on bottom.

1-2 layers of 6oz glass on the old ones, 5-6 on the tips of the new has held up significantly better.
 

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#6 ·
That's cool! Got any pics--even of him using them on the boat?

Handles tapered like sculling oars (widest at your thumbs) or tapered so the widest point is near the shaft (widest under your pinkies)?

Wow, I didn't know there were blades that had a socket instead of a "male" plug that went into the shaft. Do you think he'd take an email or call from me? I'd mostly like to hear if there's anything he'd change on his before I start another set.
 
#5 ·
I took these pictures last night and realized how chewed up the tips of the old oars are...so they got completely sanded down.

..and while I was at it, I decided to thin the blades and reduce the swing weight. I went at the blades with a 40-grit flap disc in an angle grinder and made a ton of sawdust. :)

The blades were previously quite convex, and I flattened them out so the edges were about 1/4" (previously 3/8"+) and the blades were more flat-ground, to borrow a knifemaking term. I moved the balance point 4" up the shaft, which is not an insignificant amount!!

Got done about 10pm, showered off the sawdust and went to bed. This morning, I woke up at 5:30am so I went out and re-glassed the tips. They got 6 layers this time, and I carried the glass 4" up each blade edge. My phone died and my kid borrowed my charger, so I'll take pics tonight.
 
#8 ·
:grin: You know that Scouts aren't simple 1-2 month projects?

Borrow time on someone's table saw to rip the shaft and blade pieces, glue them up on sawhorses next to the Scout, and do all your planing and sanding outdoors when the weather is nice.

<= says the guy who has a 4Runner on jackstands in my shop and is working on my oars in my garage. :grin:

I tend to look for 2x8's, 2x10's, and 2x12's in 10', 12', 14', or 16' flavors. Larger boards will generally come from bigger trees with straighter (and hopefully tighter grain). My last ones were ripped to 2" wide x 1" thick and laminated to 2" x 2". The side benefit is that you can minimize the risk of a crack due to grain runout because it's backed by another piece of wood with different grain.

I glued the blade pieces on the same way as your friend. I also like to taper or step down the blade pieces--so you're not shaping a 1.5" thick piece at the outside edge down to less than 1/2" thick. The piece next to the shaft square could be 1.25" thick, next one 7/8", and the last one 1/2". Then you simply plane off the corners until you get a flat, smooth blade.

thank you for the link! He was right in his first paragraph--it looks easy, but it does take quite awhile.
 
#9 ·
:grin: You know that Scouts aren't simple 1-2 month projects?
It's already been 8 months :roll: We just got the engine and tranny back in it yesterday and now only have to finish up the wiring.

I want to get my shop set-up finished up this summer and then I have visions of lovingly shaping my oars over many evenings of whiskey sipping next winter.

I have a really nice table saw and he's got the band saw, so we are good to go there.

Thanks for the tip on tapering the blade laminates so that you don't have as much to shave.

By the way, if you poke around his blog, he's got a post on wrapping oars with a serving mallet. I did my Cataracts this spring with his mallet and it only took like 15 minutes per oar. They were so tight that I had to back off because I was afraid I'd crush the shaft.
 
#11 ·
Progress on giving the old oars some TLC

9.5'ers got more glass on the tips. Time to flip the Oar rights and wear the edges on the other side.

10'ers got completely sanded below the wraps and all new glass tips. That's 6 layers of 6oz glass. It's very clear if you wet out the glass well. There's a slight greenish hue as your layup gets thicker. Think window glass.

On the bare wood, I'll squeegee on epoxy and use a heat gun to warm it and soak it into the wood.

Everything gets a couple coats of catalyzed spar varnish.

...and I launch on the Main Salmon 6/28. Oh, and I'm out of town this weekend 🙂
 

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#12 ·
Sanded off the old varnish.

Skim coat epoxy. I use an old credit card or hotel room key to squeegee on the epoxy, and fill cracks and low spots. A brush will fill a consistent thickness on top of high and low spots indiscriminately.
 

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#39 ·
This is a big shout-out to CB Rob. Using a roundover bit on the shaft is mf'ing BRILLIANT!


Used a 2in router bit for the shaft.



My first oars were made round with a table saw, a jack plane, and a block plane, followed by copious sanding.

Second set were built with a table saw and hand power plane, followed by copious sanding.


I bought a 1" roundover bit online for $21. Worth every penny--especially spread out over 14 oars. My buddy Jeff chucked it in his shaper and we went to work. Rounded them from the bottom of the squaretop to the top of the blade. These took maybe 5 minutes per shaft, and will take minimal sanding. Thank you CB Rob for the protip!
 

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#17 ·
Let's get started.

Buddy wanted a set, so I told him I'd help. Then two more guys wanted oars. We're now up to four sets of 3 oars.

Bought some gorgeous cvg Doug for at RBM lumber in Columbia Falls, MT, along with some spruce and cedar for blades.

8/4 x 6" x 10', and a couple of 8/4 x 8" x 10'.
I can easily get three shafts out of the 8" wide boards; probably 2 each with rips for blades or to laminate into an additional shaft in the 6" boards.

Not entirely sure what I'll do on the square top...probably 3" square, which will require a 1/2" ripper glued to each face of the 2" board above the rope wrap.
 
#21 ·
Buddy wanted a set, so I told him I'd help. Then two more guys wanted oars. We're now up to four sets of 3 oars.

Bought some gorgeous cvg Doug for at RBM lumber in Columbia Falls, MT, along with some spruce and cedar for blades.

8/4 x 6" x 10', and a couple of 8/4 x 8" x 10'.
I can easily get three shafts out of the 8" wide boards; probably 2 each with rips for blades or to laminate into an additional shaft in the 6" boards.

Not entirely sure what I'll do on the square top...probably 3" square, which will require a 1/2" ripper glued to each face of the 2" board above the rope wrap.
Running out of attachment space, so I resized these pics
 

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#19 ·
Waiting for a buddy to return from a trip to use his shop to rip the new wood to width, and dug on my old computer to find the build pics from my earlier sets.

Oldest set--taken 14 years ago next week (7/18/04). Forgot how tedious it was when I hand-planed them.

The epoxy/fiberglass/ash spline across the tips is visible before the tip of the oar was trimmed.
 

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#25 ·
Thanks for asking! I wasn't sure if I was posting too much without enough info as I didn't get many responses. Finally got started last Thursday night.


I had originally wanted to make them all out of 2x2 solid stock, but while the grain was straight, there was some curvature in the boards. We ripped the boards to 1 1/16" x 2", and then planed them down to 1"x2". Laminating them--even with only one joint--will make them much straighter and stronger. A side benefit of ripping 1x2's is that we ended up with a couple pieces with knots that we will discard or use for raft paddles, and will be able to build 2 total extra oars.



With all the wood ripped, we started swapping boards around to come up with sets that would all be the same weight. (One heavy board/one light strip, or two medium-density strips.)
Also flipped the strips end-for-end or upside down to make sure that any grain runout was canceled by straight grain or opposite runout in its mating piece. Grain runout is when the grain runs off the side of the board instead off the end of the board (which is ideal straight grain).



If you have a grain line that runs all the way across the board, it's going to break there. If the grain runs across the board in less than a foot, it's going to break right away. If it runs across the board in 4' or more, there's probably enough strength in the board to not ever break. So, if we had some grain that ran from upper left to lower right, we'd mate it with straight grain wood, or a board that that had runout going to lower left to upper right--counteracting the stress on the runout and minimizing the chance the oar could break from wood splitting.


The wood is all sorted and sitting on sawhorses with big 2" x 8" hardwood strongbacks that will clamp all the oar blanks perfectly straight while the glue cures.



We ran out of beer and it was 11:30pm, so we called it a night. Hopefully gluing tomorrow night. I'm epoxying mine; Jeff plans to use Gorilla Glue on his.
 

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#26 ·
Ouch!


I really appreciate you giving us the update and a pic of the failure mode. Do you think it was due to water intrusion or just the pressure of the oarlock? Would it be worthwhile to do an epoxy/fiberglass wrap under the rope wraps to prevent this on future oars.

Edit: it sucks to break an oar, but it's going to look magnificent hanging on your wall.
 
#27 ·
I think the failure was all due to getting slammed against the rock, and that any oar would have snapped.
It did allow me to get a look at the inside of the oar, and I could see that the repeated stress of being pushed against the oarlock had damaged the surface grain, as well as allowed water intrusion.
There was a thick layer of epoxy under the rope wrap but years later it was all broken down.
I had resealed the rest of the oar 5 or 6 times, but never pulled off the rope to seal under it.
 
#29 ·
It did allow me to get a look at the inside of the oar, and I could see that the repeated stress of being pushed against the oarlock had damaged the surface grain, as well as allowed water intrusion.
There was a thick layer of epoxy under the rope wrap but years later it was all broken down.
I may add a tube of glass under the wrap--or maybe all the way to the throat of the oar.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Braided-Fi...-fiber-Glass-PER-10-FOOT-section/142384220991
 
#28 ·
Thanks again.

I had my original oars' ropes off 7 years ago when they got a complete sanding/re-varnishing. Those wraps haven't been off at all since, nor the v2 7yo oars. I'll give them some more attention later this summer/early fall when the new squaretops get done and wrapped.

I plan to build a serving mallet per the Marlinspike Sailor (as shared on the Shoelessmusings blog)
 

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#32 ·
Thanks! We're gluing the blanks tonight. I'll post more pics tomorrow.




does anyone know the size of the square on an actual squaretop.... i run pro locks and they make a plastic sleeve to slip over the top.

Interestingly, they're not all that big! 2" at the square top, about 1 15/16-1 7/8" under the rope wrap, and only 1 9/16" down at the throat.

I'm planning to make mine 2" square all the way through. I'll laminate on some exotic hardwood scraps (harder and also a color contrast) for the square tops to make them 2 3/8" square. Hopefully 2" under the ropes if I don't sand them down too much, and then down to 1 5/8"+ at the throat. Shooting for slightly more weight inside the oarlocks than Sawyers--and I can always sand mine down more--difficult to add weight!
 
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