Building A Chesapeake Light Craft Northeaster Dory -- Oars, part 2

Oar Blade

Making a set of oars for the Dory has been the most ambitious wood-working element of the entire project. I have been working from the general set of plans I mentioned in my last post about oars, but I have freely adapted those plans based on the lumber available to me in my local Home Depot. In making these oars I am taking a calculated risk, but the costs are not high: a few dollars for lumber and a lot of time for construction.

As I mentioned earlier, the shafts of the oars are formed from #1 pine 2x2's. Here is a picture showing how I planned to shape the handles:

Oar handles

If you look closely at that picture, you can see that I have already attached and begun to shape the wooden jackets that serve as counterweights. Here is a picture of those counterweights at an earlier stage, showing just how rough they were in the beginning:

Counterweights

In a previous post I showed how I clamped these oars together and created the rough, rectangular shapes that I would have to hew to shape with my new spokeshave. After a lot of shaving and sanding, I was able to shape the first oar to look like this:

Shaped Oar

This was just the first of the two oars and it wasn't really finished. The two wings of the blade were attached by only a bit of thickened epoxy, and in places I could see right through the crack. Were I to row hard with such oars, I'd be likely to break off the attachments. So my next task was to create sizable fillets along both sides of these connections. I also needed to save some weight by thinning the blade and the neck of the loom. And, of course, I needed to make the second oar.

All of that has now happened. Both oars are ready for a final light sanding and then some epoxy followed by varnish. I'm still not sure they won't break with hard use, but I'm confident enough to push onward.

Finished Oars

If you zoom way in on the oars in the photo, you can see the fillets and the fairly thin shape of the blades. I think I'll still bore a hole into the center of the handles so that I can insert some heavy sinkers and improve the balance of the oars. They are not perfect, but they should be fairly attractive and very useful.

Update 2/16/2022 I've now used the oars for aver seven years and they are still as good as new. I did insert lead sinkers into holes bored into the handles and the balance is good. The oars are totally suitable and still look like new.