I recently finished my wooden dorie that I fitted the Yamaha Jet engine/ pump into it. (view the youtube search: dons drift boat) or this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkQLEVY5tyY   So I needed some oars to complete the drift boat part.

I started by purchasing some full 1" vertical grain doug fir, then ripped it into 2" wide peices, then layed the 1" side on edge on the table saw and ended up with 8' peices that were close to 1/4" thick after subtracting two kerf thicknesses.  I ended up using 9 pieces of the 1/4" x 2"x8' to make my desired thickness and width of approx 2"  and 2" to begin the shaft.  I had a couple channel irons of approx 1"x3" that I had used to fabricate some door stiles for a wood door maybe ten years ago.....and I used these for the glue up using epoxy with a strip of 10 oz fiberglass cloth between each layer.

I cleaned up the edges, squard off the ends then cut a 1/4" groove about a 12" into the shafts, to accept a piece of shaped luan plywood to create the the beginning of the blade. Then, starting from the oarlock station on the shaft I tapered 1/4" on each side giving a new dimension of approx 1.5" x 1-3/4" at the end of the shaft.

This is viewing the end of the squared off shaft and before cutting the groove.  The zig-zag of the graining was caused by switching every other strip, end-for-end and as in building the door stiles, this helps to prevent warping. After cutting the groove I then shaped the four corners with a 3/4" radius shaper bit. At the end of the shaft the 3/4" was enough to make it round, on the upper end of the shaft was an approx 3/8" flat spot on each side of the shaft.

After slipping the luan blade into the shaft this left maybe the front 18" of the Luan without a "shaft" thickness so I filled that in with layers of luan glued together.  At this time I decided to give the end of the blade a forward scooping? shape and did that by giving these filling pieces a curve when gluing them together before adding them to the shaft, and again when gluing them to the luan plywood blade.  I took a piece of 2x6 framing lumber and jig sawed the desired curve, then using this as a clamp when making the two glues.  I'm getting tongue tied here, harder to recap the steps than I thought - thank golly for pictures which are worth a thousand words.....  I made a pattern for this small piece and used my shaper to duplicate them all the same. Same with the blade shapes.Two thicknesses of the luan strips for the front of the blade, three for the back. This is part of the flotation and shaping plan,  whereby I create a concave shape for the front of the blade, and a convex shape for the back.  Then glue these little pieces into the blade, clamping again with the same 2x6 clamp.

At this point, I finish gluing the front of the blade into the shaft, and install a layer of 10 oz fiberglass  over the shaft and blade, plus a small strip of approx 1" at the blade/shaft line.  Then, I take a four inch wide strip of kevlar fabric and fold it around the edges of the luan plywood for edge impact protection.  This is difficult and I have to keep pushing it into the plywood until the epoxy hardens enough to overcome the tendency of the kevlar to spring away from the plywood.   Then..... I make a pastey mixture of epoxy and glass bubbles, real thick.  The glass bubbles are almost weightless and I'm just trying to create a fairing material and low weight filler so the oar will float when its dropped into the water when tying a fly or netting a fish....whatever.

The glass bubble epoxy mixture got quite hard.  I put one layer of S type fiberglass cloth onto the dried epoxy/glass bubble paste, followed with one layer of 2x2 twill carbon fiber.  If I had to do it again, I'd use two layers of bi-axial and skip the carbon twill.  For the oarstops I just wrapped a knot of kevlar fabric around the shafts. I needed to raise the locks above the rail at the inside so did that with a chunk of 2" oak that I shaped.  The locks are cheapos at $15 for the pair. I placed them about two inches in front of the leading edge of the rope seat. I fashioned handles by just digging into the shaft with a jig saw and belt sander.

The way I shaped the handles, the hand grip immediately orients the direction of the blade downward.  Because of the curvature of the blade it creates a left and a right oar, I made the spare oar with a straight blade.  I gave the exposed wood three coats of epoxy.  The blades are painted with an polyurethane paint, and an acrylic enamel paint - both of these are  two part paints with hardener.

 Held at the approx oarlock position it floats about right there. and then the finished product.....VIOLA

The oars finished out at 9'4" and 11pounds and one ounce.

Almost had as much fun making these as the boat, by the way - the oars have the same paint scheme as the side of the boat.  Am looking forward to trying these with the boat, still don't know how much the boat weighs, and how it will respond to an oar pull.  More durn fun!!