As is typical with some things I get into,
I was a bit obsessive with the finishing of my self-made paddle after I brought
it home. I used 60, 120, 180, 200 grit
sandpapers both hand sanding and with a palm sander to polish up the finish and
also create the transition profile from blade to shaft the way I wanted it
to. It has a nice ridge that extends
about 8 inches from the initial transition, and I aggressively took material out
of the blades on either side, so it is close to consistent thickness all the
way to just before the tip.
I also filled in a small indentation on
the shaft with epoxy mixed with wood flour from the sanding, and polished up
all the surfaces with medium and 0000 steel wool, to an almost shiny surface. By holding the paddle up to a light source,
imperfections were identified and sanded out.
Yep, like I said, a little too much obsession for just a paddle… even
before the finishing.
I was thinking initially of maybe
woodburning something into my paddle, but at this point I don’t know if I need
to do that. I now know this piece of
wood quite intimately and will quite easily be able to identify it, either from
a distance or up close. I was quite
happy with it already.
Now for the obsession
on how to finish it.After much research, I decided on polymerized tung oil. I
am almost a tung oil expert with the amount of info I have read on it. It’s certainly not a simple brush on one or
two coats on the surface and you are good to go type of finish, it’s much more
involved.
Tung oil is one of the
best ‘drying oil’ finishes available.
Drying oil means it forms a plastic-like film as the molecules in the
oil cross link to each other, otherwise called drying, or polymerizing. Tung oil
cones from the nut of the Tung tree and as a finish, it is similar to linseed oil, but it doesn’t yellow with time and is less likely
to form mildew as linseed oil can, and also more expensive. Tung oil is one of the oldest wood finishes known, the Chinese used to use it to protect ships hulls from the water. It comes from the oil of the tung tree nut. The resulting finish is deeply penetrated
into the wood, is hard, flexible, and will form a watertight
barrier. It fills pores and voids in the
wood, so it also makes the wood less likely to dent when impacted. The standard tung oil apparently takes
forever and a day to dry/polymerize by itself.
Polymerized oil is oil that has been heated up to partially polymerize
it already and greatly speed up the drying.
I went to Lee Valley which sells proper real tung oil, really one of the
only places that sells proper tung oil in Canada. It is thinned with solvents to 50% oil, as
polymerized tung oil is as thick as honey in it’s pure state. The tung oil Lee Valley sells is actually made
by Sutherland Welles and branded for Lee Valley. They also sell a sealer, but it’s not worth
purchasing it. The sealer is just an
even more thinned tung oil to 20% oil, which you can easily do yourself by
adding a solvent. I learned this after
the fact, so I purchased a 1litre bottle of the poly tung oil (which is a
costly $45, that was the only size available from Lee Valley!), and a 250ml
bottle of the sealer, which I intended on using for the first couple coats.
The idea at first is to get the finish to
soak deep as possible into the wood by highly diluting it with a solvent. In my case I chose Turpentine, which is the
best solvent to use, but also the most expensive type of finish.Turpentine also
helps bring So I diluted the sealer by about half for the first coat, which
would make it only 10% tung oil. It was
very thin, allowing it to soak in and penetrate as deep as it could. Initially wiping on the oil transforms the
wood instantly into a thing of beauty, bringing out the full grain, so amazing
looking, I couldn’t stop looking at it.
While the oil and solvent was soaking in, I also wet sanded the paddle
with 800grit wet sanding paper.
This followed with maybe 10 more
applications of gradually lowered ratios of Tung oil to solvent, and sanding with
some steel wool in between. After
several applications, it starts soaking into the wood. After that, it’s basically filling in all the
small indentations, pores and imperfections on the surface making a super smooth finish. For almost all of the coats, the oil was wiped
from the surface and rubbed in as it thickened.
After working with it for this project, I’ve found polymerized tung oil
to be an interesting finish, as you can adjust it for how you want the final
finish to look and feel. You can make it
so you feel the grain by applying less coats.
Tung oil buffed with 0000 size steel wool is very beautiful in this way,
and matte. However, I couldn’t resist I
choosing to have a slightly higher finish build on my paddle, for more protection
against scratches, water and for a beautiful high gloss finish. But it is a little trickier and less forgiving. I applied 1-2 coats thinned with turpentine
and not wiping it off. But you can’t
touch the surface, and make sure you apply
evenly. I made the blade higher gloss
than the handle. The handle will get matte
anyways from the handling. It took me
several weeks of applications where I am now satisfied I can stop finishing it
and actually use it. Although I have yet
to use it and see how it weathers ages and wears, I’m ultra happy with my choice of polymerized tung oil over boiled linseed oil. Brings
out the grain amazingly, and seems like it will have a good protective layer,
it also looks clear and not yellow like linseed oil, also does not smell much
at all, unlike linseed oil. I highly
recommend the polymerized tung oil. Another
tip I have learned is to squeeze the bottle and get rid of as much air as
possible from the bottle for storage, so it doesn’t polymerize and get gummy
during storage. 
The black cherry wood my paddle is made of
is a beautiful material as well. The
grain structure, color and flaws in the wood are beautiful. Mine happens to be two tone with different
heart wood and sap wood colors. It is a
strong wood, although a bit more heft than the soft wood paddles. I contoured my paddle at the shaft to handle
transition to lighten up the paddle as much as I could, and thinned the blade
so it is stiff to moderate flex.
I may have obsessed about this paddle much
more than I really intended to, but making your own paddle and finishing it a
great project. I like working with wood and I gained some
experience and learned a lot about woodworking and the interesting tung oil
finish I used. I’m proud of my paddle
now and my paddling will be more soulful with a paddle I made myself, instead
of some low quality off the shelf paddle, even though they will perform
similar. The only problem now is I am
hesitant to use my paddle and ding it up, I’d like to hang it on my wall. But I made it for paddling, so paddling it
is. I am interested to see how the
length and tripper style of paddle matches what I want out of a paddle. Paddle on!
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