Confession time

One of the benefits of our glacial speed in building this thing has been that, at least, each step has been well thought through and planned before we actually finish our tea, get off the sofa and get into action.

"But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity."

I had a bit of a rush of blood the other day: we had three of our four oars under way: one at such an advanced stage that, if you left the lights off and squinted, it looked almost finished... The others were taking shape nicely and that only left number four, which needed a bit of adjustment and some joining of pieces before assembly.

I acted in haste. Rashly. Impetuously. Precipitously.(I have to cover the options before Joe has a go at me). The result was, well, er, that I built the damn thing upside down.

How can an oar be built upside down, you may ask? If you are really interested, remember we mentioned that the loom consisted of a box with two sides, a base and a cap? Well, the cap and the base are of different thickness and I, in my headlong dash, had attached the spoon pieces to the loom while it was cap down, not cap up. If we had made the same mistake with them all, it might not have mattered, since, though they might have looked a little strange, at least they'd all be the same.

A base

A cap, up

There was nothing for it, but to remove the spoon pieces and swap them over. However, since I had also merrily hacked away with saw and chisel at the loom, we had to splice in a new section. We just happened to have a spare loom knocking around, which we cut to size. (Ask Joe about where that came from).

The repair insert ready for glueing

All a huge waste of time, though I have to say that the challenge of rectifying the error was great fun.

Now we're back on track...

You can't see the join

More spoon thrills

I bet you couldn't wait for the next instalment.

Having roughly shaped the spoon of the oar to the overall curve, we then set about making it less like a pizza peel and more like, well, an oar.

The traditional Thames skiff oar is very slim: when I started rowing (in black and white) that sort of blade was called a toothpick.

Thames skiff blades. Picture courtesy of Hobs.

These were superseded by the Macon oar: a fuller shape. The plans we are basing our design on are close to the latter.

It was a simple job to lay a template over the rough block spoon and  cut away the surplus:

Working across a pair helps to ensure uniformity

 

Then comes the really hard work of refining that 'blank'. Lots of careful chiselling, planing and sanding:

Taking Shape

We are up to our eyes in sawdust and getting through sheet after sheet of sandpaper. The most effective tool is an angle grinder with a sanding wheel attached. This enables us to shape very quickly and effectively, though it rather stings when you accidentally sand your knuckles with it.

Spoons

It's all very well trying to be entertaining, but, when it comes down to it, we are building a boat and that's not always going to be funny. There was a vague hope that others would gain inspiration and insight from our experience, but unless you find the story of two non-Completer Finishers, procrastinating their way through a project, uplifting, you are probably out of luck. Buckle up, knuckle down, for a worthy few articles on making oars.

The boat, by the way, has had its 8 coats of varnish on the inside and looks wonderful. We have turned it over and will give the outer hull a final sand and then a last coat. We are debating the addition of a brass rubbing strip down the keel: probably a good idea, given the absence of landing stages on the Waikato.

In the meantime, making the oars is just as satisfying as every other stage of the build. Another learning curve, but another pleasing result. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but it's turning out that way....

Having prepared the loom (the shaft of the oar) we glued additional lengths of wood at the spoon end to give the necessary width.

The spoon before shaping

We also added a mahogany tip, for decoration and also strength, but most of this will disappear during the shaping of the spoon.

Most of the resulting block of laminated wood now needs to be removed to look like Michaelangelo (which is our code for "take away everything that doesn't look like the finished article")

A series of horizontal cuts, then chisel away the surplus, was our initial strategy:

This turned out to be very, very hard work, largely because our saw is rubbish and our chisel not too sharp either. Joe had the right idea: he went and wrote emails while I bashed my thumb repeatedly.

It's like uncovering a fossil

Mindless persistence and some heavy work with a sanding disc attached to an angle grinder began to pay off. Since we used different wood types for cap, sides, base and for the width of the spoons, the components are revealed by the shaping process, giving patterns that (we think) add interest.

The mahogany stripes already look nice and we know they will eventually show as a rich glossy brown, contrasting well with the paler wood.

Once the face has been shaped, we then roughly cut away the back before careful, detailed shaping to the template.

What does it mean when Joe's Welcome Mat is inside pointing the way out? 

At a late stage in the game, we remembered that we had a much better option: we have a router, which will make easy work of the basic shaping. As long as we are careful...

Up the creek

I have to admit that the problem of the oars has weighed on my mind for some time: the closer the boat itself got to completion, the more I sank into gloom as my desire to do it properly collided with my lack of understanding of how to get there. As so often happens, actually getting stuck in relieved the pressure and, at the time of writing, we are well on the way to producing the oars.

Luckily, Joe stumbled upon this Canadian chap, who provides detailed guidance and a set of plans, which includes templates to limit our cockups to an acceptable margin. We hope.

If you are reading this because you want to build some oars, god help you... this isn't the place for detailed guidance, but our next few blogs will aim to give something of an overview which might help your planning, or avoidance of mistakes.

It's conceptually very simple: the oar is a long box made up of a base, sides and a cap. The sides are subtly tapered along the entire length towards each end, to give the correct shape, and the ends are filled to make a solid handle and spoon. Parallel sides are added to complete the spoon, or blade. The base and cap will then be shaped to give a rounded profile and the spoon cut, planed, sanded to give the traditional curved shape.

Here is our first pair waiting for the cap to be added:

The spoon end

The blocks in place to make the handles

It's important to get the sides as mirror images: small discrepancies  can be adjusted with a plane or sanding block, but getting it right from the outset is preferable, otherwise you may be swallowing a fly....

Note that the wood of the base and cap is very unlikely to be dead straight, so it's best to mark your own centre line and use that as a reference for shaping.

We then stuck the caps on and applied as much weight along the length as possible:

When the glue had set, we unclamped everything: there were some small gaps between the sides and the cap, which we concluded were due to the surfaces of the wood not being perfectly flat, but a bit of extra glue will take care of those.

We then planed off the excess where the cap and base overlapped the sides. After much checking to ensure that the handle end and the spoon were in alignment, we glued and clamped the laminates to widen the spoon. We have gone for a design which will give us a couple of mahogany stripes on the spoon: a sort of design twiddle to echo our breasthook and rudder yoke strips (see earlier blogs).

Oar laminates clamped

The spoon ready for shaping

You can discern the shape of the loom, which follows the lines determined by the sides of the oar.

Next comes the real challenge: shaping the spoons. One is easy enough, but four that match is tricky.

18 Years and not a word!

For those of you who have any culture, you will be aware of the scene in The Life of Brian where Brian, fleeing his adoring crowd, jumps into a hole landing on Simon the Holy man's foot. Simon cries out, breaking his 18 year vow of silence. He's understandably unhappy. We had a similar moment yesterday.

Oh my foot!!

First a bit of background, five years ago we decided to get into the Guinness book of world records (We're actually both already in it, more about that later)  by being the first people to row the Waikato River in a boat that we've built ourselves. Disregarding our fatuous attempts at fame and fortune, we've had an unspoken agreement that we would avoid outside help and do all the work ourselves. We've talked about it.

So, yesterday, Jenny the lodger, walks into the garage and asks what the spokeshave does, so without thinking, I demonstrate on the loom and turn back to hacking at the spoon. The next thing I know Chris calls out "Oh my foot!" or words to that effect. Jenny had started shaping the loom for us. 5 years of hard work undone, we've had help. To be honest, my first thought was sod it, she might as well finish it now. Chris was more creative, he suggested that Jenny join the team and row us down the Waikato, or maybe spend some time in the coxswains seat. We had some more extreme ideas, including disposing of Jenny under the patio. Jenny was quite keen to avoid this and has agreed to join the support team.

Jenny "Spokeshaves"

So, the floodgates are open, carpenters out there with some time on their hands, feel free to pop round, spokeshave in hand, and finish the boat and oars.

Note to Norris McWhirter : The oars aren't strictly the boat, so the record will stand.