canoe maker

Lately, most of my paddles have been maintained in basic oil finish. I prefer the simplicity of oil, the feel, and the ease of doing touchups. Most oil finishes have chemical solvents to speed up the drying process...chemicals that are quite toxic and foul smelling.

I've been intrigued with a new product brought out by the good folks over at Badger Canoe Paddles, a hemp based finishing oil. A lengthy writeup on their blog sounded very convincing. And after seeing the gorgeous satiny smooth finish on some of their commercial paddles at a local outfitter, I decided to give the oil a try on the spruce bushcraft cree paddle recently painted and on the canoe pole made last summer. So far, I'm very happy with the product and it's now my finish of choice. Obviously, you pay a premium price for a specialty finishing oil like this but it's great for those who want to get away from nasty solvents and other chemicals.

An earlier post about Michael Weiser's paddle warping problem got me thinking about preventative maintenance on the thinned tip of the Maple Northwoods Paddle. While I'm quite diligent about maintaining my paddles with oil frequently, I thought that perhaps the delicate end grain of this paddle may need a bit more protection.

The paddle had been decorated with a fake burning of Copper Tip protector and figured it would be an interesting touch to add some glossy varnish to this decorative embellishment, both to make it look more "metallic" but also to seal the end grain more thoroughly.

After delicately brushing some thinned coats of spar varnish to the tip as well as to the design with a brush, I ended up with a nice glossy finish. Here are some shots which captured the difference in tone in the varnish tip versus the oiled blade...




Varnish & Shiny "Copper Tip"