Contact me at: rrcp@mts.net or by phone 204.878.2524

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Lots of stuff goes on in this shop, located in Lorette, Manitoba.

Primarily it's the building and repair of classic wood & canvas canoes, and the making of premium canoe paddles. I also do custom boat building, composite fabrication, and special projects. A growing passion of mine is the making of classical guitars, I'll post about that, too.


I want to be able to share with my clients the progress of their commissioned work. Later I started thinking that there might be other people who are interested in what goes on inside a wooden canoe shop operated by an artist and a recovering teacher.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by email, phone, or by post. My mailing address is:

Red River Canoe & Paddle
24249 River Rd
Lorette, Manitoba
Canada
R5K 0Z6




Thursday 13 October 2011

My friend Cam wants a new walnut paddle, but he wants it made all of a single piece of wood. No laminations anywhere. He puts a lot of kilometers under his canoe each season while guiding. So, while he not only needs a paddle that he'll be happy with, he needs a paddle that is up to the task. That means that the shaft has to have a minimum diameter of 1 1/8". His will be 1 3/16". The trouble is that most lumber is only available in 4/4 thickness, or 1" max. Ideally, I'd prefer to buy lumber that is 6/4 thickness, but that isn't being sold. So, I have to buy a great big piece of 8/4 Walnut.

Here you can see how the new paddle is being laid out on the stock. There is lots of wood left over and I need to be creative in how I use it so that it is not going into the scrap box. I was able to get woodout of this piece for one more laminated paddle, and some small pieces for other purposes. I don't scrap any wood until it is so small to use that the work of using it exceeds the value of the wood.

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1 comment:

John Huntsman said...

Nice wood work. Now that the wood is setup, we can expect work to begin immediately. I look forward to it.

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