Frankenpaddle

The oppressive heat done has moved on to the Hell it belongs in and morning comes twenty some degrees cooler with almost calm wind.  It is humid and overcast, but the temperature makes it comfortable.

I head to Pond Cove.  Yesterday's thunderstorms hit this area harder than at our house and I have to make a short detour off of my normal route where a large tree has fallen onto heavy duty powerlines.  It looks like a half day job for that tree removal.  

I set out and find it quiet for an Independence Day weekend. I head out of the cove and follow the shore down river, following the shore somewhat closely so that I can stare up into the forest keeping a sharp lookout for the huldra.

Frankenpaddle is in my hands today.  I carved this paddle several years ago from a single piece of western red cedar.  The blade was pointed trompe l'oeil to resemble a cedar basket, western red cedar being a superb basket material used by the first people of the Northwest coast.  As a paddle, it was light and reasonably tough, and easy to carve.  It's not a great canoe paddle wood, but it is not a bad one either.  One day, I split the blade after striking a rock while paddling against a stiff current.  Usually, a split blade is easily repaired by opening the split with a thin saw and gluing a piece of wood veneer into the gap.  Unfortunately, the cedar blade split in a jagged mess.  A couple attempts at gluing it back together failed, so I cut the split section out and glued a scrap from a poplar paddle into the large opening.  The trompe l'oeil artwork on the blade disappeared with this fix. 

Frankenpaddle

This worked for a while, but the flexing of the blade eventually caused this fix to fail.  After a few months, I decide to fiberglass the blade.  Although sturdy, the paddle was no longer well balanced.  It felt like a cheapshit department store paddle, and got benched for a spell. By this time, the repairs were a project into what was required at a minimum. So then, I peeled the fiberglass off and went to work removing wood.  The blade at it's thickest is about half of what it originally was.  I re-glassed it and it immediately became my favorite paddle - well balanced, light, and sturdy.  Unfortunately, in time, the crude glue joint at the top of the poplar piece flexed too much and eventually broke the fiberglass and I benched it once more.  This time, I peeled a small section of fiberglass off of the problem area - about the size of a playing card on each side.  Then, I cut 3 thin slots across the problem joint and glued in thin strips of wood, and patched the glass.  Today, I took it out for the first time and once again, it is my favorite paddle, not only because of how it feels in the hand, but also because it wears the scars of many trips in the canoe.  The new fix, the three strips of glued in wood look something like the sutures on Frankenstein's forehead.