Struggling with my next Aleut paddle

My first paddle, "Big Al", was a breeze to make. OK, that's an understatement, as it certainly did take time and work, but it felt natural. It came out great! Light as a feather, sturdy, and very efficient in the water. Looks good too.

I wanted to do another paddle with a little more style in the wood. Bet you can't eat just one, right?

So this time I set out to experiment with other paddle woods. Same basic form, an Aleut (Unagan, Unalaskan, Alutiiq) and same length, but fancier. I wanted possibly a more elaborate blade shape, 3 different woods which I plan to mildly stain before Tung Oil finish, and a slimmer loom, with possibly slimmer blades. (Big Al is beefy in appearance, though strikingly light and balanced.)

After a lot of research and searching, I found a good source of well aged Sitka Spruce. I had a good spine piece left over from the first paddle of Western Red Cedar. Given the short length of my spruce, I needed another foot in blade length, so I used black walnut, which should also give it protection on the ends.

This time instead of laminating 3 pieces simply, I made a headache for myself laminating 17 separate pieces! That was the second go round, as butt joining pieces with dowels didn't work well at all. It's not the neatest or best glue up. And working the wood has been HARD! I don't know why.

So I go at it a little at a time every couple of days, but still am not sure this will work out at all, much less work out as well as Big Al did. We'll see.

Maybe you'll see too, if I ever finish it...

We interrupt this broadcast for a brief announcement:

Jack Eli Frankel arrived on Wednesday to a packed house of the family. Parents, baby and grandparents doing fine!

Hope to get back to paddling on Sunday.