Building Chuck Holst's West Greenland Paddle

I built my first Greenland paddle using the guidelines described by Gerry David in his article "The Greenland Paddle." I deviated slightly from the plans by starting with a laminated blank instead of a 2x4. I used some nice, straight, knot-free aspen as the base, with some oak laminations for the shaft. This produced a very light and flexible paddle (28 oz.), but the edges of the blades were a little too sharp to grip comfortably. Keeping that in mind, I started on a second paddle.

I chose a different set of plans for the second paddle, using the excellent article by Chuck Holst, "Making a West Greenland Paddle." His plans are written clearly and the illustrations make the paddle layout easy. As I began construction, it occurred to me that the progress photos would be much more helpful if I could show the plans side-by-side. I contacted Chuck Holst, who kindly gave me permission to do just that. I started with the original pdf document, converted it to HTML, and then integrated some cross-reference links. This will allow you to jump back and forth between the plans and the construction journal.

I've organized the building report to follow the plans as closely as possible and to reference the plan step numbers in the headings. Since I built the paddle blank from laminations, I had some extra steps and occasionally had to re-order the steps to accomodate. As with the boat construction pages, most of the photos are links to additional photos and notes.

The cross-reference links are indicated as follows:

	When viewing the building progress page, click on the "Instructions" button to link to the corresponding section in plans.
	Alternatively, when viewing the Plans page, click on the "Building" button to link to the related section in my building report.

Materials

The plans suggested starting with a clear 2x4, but the laminated blank worked well for the first paddle, so I decided to do the same for the second. Again, I started with aspen as the base for the paddle, and used some leftover Cedar, redwood, and walnut to form the multiple laminations. Raw Components Here's some of the raw components. The only wood I purchased specifically for the project was the 1x4x8' length of aspen. The remainder of the wood was leftover from building the boats.

Required Tools

I did not own some of the tools that Chuck suggested, so I used alternatives. Also, since I was building the paddle blank from multiple laminations, I had some additional tool requirements. Here's a list of what I used:

Tablesaw	- Cutting the strips for laminations
Clamps	- Gluing the blank
Saber saw	- Cutting paddle to rough outline
Block plane	- Carving down to the layout lines
Jointer plane	- Shaping the ramp on the paddle face
Long board	- Smoothing after paddle was planed to shape
Ethafoam sanding block	- Rounding over the edges
Concave cabinet scraper	- Perfect for final rounding of loom

Dimensions - Step 1

Chuck's plans call for a 3/8" thick blade edge (as opposed to the 1/8" thick blade of Gerry David's plans). I'm certain this will result in a much more comfortable paddle for my grip. For the general paddle dimensions and layout, I followed the plans, but I did refer to my first paddle for some of the measurements. Based on how the first paddle worked for me, I knew I wanted to make a couple adjustments. If you try to match the dimensions I used with the calculations in the plans, you'll find that I deviated somewhat. I made my loom a little bit longer, I made the width of the shoulder slightly larger, and I made the loom-to-blade transition more abrupt. Here's the dimensions I chose:

Overall length:	87 1/2"
Blade length:	31 5/8"
Blade width at tip:	3 1/4"
Blade width at shoulder:	1 7/8"
Loom-to-blade transition:	1/2"
Loom length:	24 3/4"
Loom cross section:	1 1/2" x 1 1/4"

Building the Blank - Step 1½

Because I chose to build up the paddle blank from laminations, I have an extra step in my construction. I began building the blank by assembling the pieces of the first layer of laminations. This resulted in a 1-1/2" thick loom which I trimmed down to 1-1/4" after glue-up. This was followed by a layer of 1/4" redwood (made from strips) followed by a 1/8" thick strip of walnut over the loom and partially onto the blade.

Rough Shaping - Step 2 & 3

After completing the paddle blank, I planed the taper from the loom to the tip of the blade and then cut the paddle to its rough shape. In the end, it's still pretty angular, but at least it's finally starting to look like a paddle.

Layout, Carving and Smoothing - Step 4 & 5

Finally, time for the fun stuff: Carving and smoothing. This involved drawing the layout lines, planing-off the corners, sanding and scraping. I used the block plane to trim-off the corners, the long board to smooth the plane marks and to do some final shaping, and an Ethafoam sanding block to round-over the edges of blades.

Finishing - Step 6 & 7

Chuck suggested using the paddle before finishing (or shower with it), but I had a few months before fair-weather in Ohio, so I went ahead and finished it. I dampened the paddle with water, allowed it to dry, hand-sanded through 220 grit, and finished it with multiple coats of tung oil. Here's a close-up of the finished loom and blade after a couple of coats.

So, that's it! Building this paddle was a fun, inexpensive, and quick project. The paddle came in a little on the heavy side, so I'm off to build another with some lighter wood. Thanks again to Chuck Holst for allowing me to combine his plans with my building report. I hope the result has been helpful.

- Ross

The finished paddle