Comment

Comment by Mark on October 27, 2012 at 6:40pm

Troy could you explain what you used for live centers and your method for making them adjustable.

Comment by Mark on October 22, 2012 at 9:08pm

I used the lathe for the shaft and handle. The blade were made ahead with a power planer.

Comment by Troy Nicolls on October 21, 2012 at 9:18am

The oar lathe I built was a router lathe. I thought it worked real well. The lathe bed was similar to the one you have bulit however it served only as a pair of live centers to turn the oar (freehand) and as a guide for the router which did all the cutting. The centers could be adjusted at each end to allow cutting a taper to the loom. While the oar was turned freehand making successive passes over the oar, if you let go of the oar, it would spin because of the directional rotation of the router. It could easily fly out of control. The blade was routed using a separate fixture which held it solid and flat to do each side one at a time. The fixture was also just another guide for the router but had the contour of the blade I wanted. When I dreamt this up, I thought I was really on to something, however you can buy expensive router lathes which do lots of really cool stuff. I will say if I knew what I was doing, I probably could have made a oar using traditional methods  in less time, but I don't have a big router. Cool thing with the router lathe is you can duplicate a pattern exactly if you are careful. As I only built one oar as a spare, I'm getting myself all excited here to build some more.

Think I need to clean my garage first...

Troy Nicolls

Comment by Mark on October 19, 2012 at 11:16pm

I just spun the wood with a free hand. Power WILL cause other problems.

Comment by Rick Newman on October 19, 2012 at 8:18pm

Phil, Troy Nicholls is one of the guys that built an oar lathe. I did a search on the site and found several posts.

Rick Newmanb

Comment by Rick Newman on October 19, 2012 at 8:12pm

Phil, there were photos and more on this subject about 15 to 18 months ago. I don't remember who though. There are variety of sites with info on similar lathes, quite often the are used to make spiral items. I know that Mike ? from Utah made some oars this way too. I will work on remembering his last name. On the montanariver boats site he goes by CYA1. He hasn't been posting much for quite a while but he worked out a good system. Some folks just turn the shaft by hand and other worked up a small motorized system. How's the fishing?

Rick Newman

Comment by Phillip Westendorf on October 18, 2012 at 7:20pm

Mark,

Ditto, Rick's comments.  Can you share more information on what you'd turn it with, how to connect the power, etc.  It's something I'd like to try and make a couple of oars with.

Dorf

Comment by Rick Newman on October 18, 2012 at 5:10pm

Mark, that's a great idea!

Rick Newman