The bollow plane and first oar.

In order to make my first spoon oar, I first needed to make a bollow plane. These tools are made from beech with a plane iron being ground to a curve. I also made a spar gauge from sapele, a simple device that helps mark the oar loom, the stick bit, from square section to octagonal at the beginning of the rounding process.

The first oar I made is known as a spoon oar, and was made from douglas fir, selected for it’s lightness and strength. I really enjoyed the ‘feel’ of this exercise, the use of touch being equal or more to the use of sight. Consideration of symmetry was of course paramount.

In a future post you will see that I have since made another oar for a specific vessel, one which is larger and has a hollowed loom.