Mmmm, smells like Walnut ! and the MRS transom

Today I visited Lumber John to get some Ash for the missing oar as well as some Hickory for a non-boat job, and dang it all, he had a beautiful stack of fresh cut Walnut.

Walnut has a weird smell that might be a hallucinogen. Before I realized it, I had a pile of it in my truck.

Here is the transom after it is cut to size.  The sculling hole is marked and faintly visible.  It is a doweled glue up of inch thick cherry.  The sculling hole is offset to starboard to allow for a motor.  The transom is not curvy, but I think it looks nice.


Here is a boatload of hardwood that's too heavy for building boats, but it will make some nice trim pieces.

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Mississippi River Skiff update:
The boat is formed.  The glass and one set of oar locks arrived.  The hull will have a laminate of 9 oz glass with Kevlar below the waterline.  The interior will have 6 oz glass all set in Raka epoxy.  http://www.raka.com/    The transom will be installed tonight.

Oars for the Mississippi River Skiff

Having never made an oar before we referred to Shaw and Tenney's beautiful oars for inspiration. On their excellent web site they indicate how to calculate the proper length of an oar for given row boat's beam.

Howard Chapelle's lines taken from an 1870's vintage river skiff indicate a maximum beam of 58.5 inches.  Taking this number and Shaw and Tenney's formula we arrived at 8.9 feet as  the proper length for the oars.

After sorting through our stacked lumber we finally found the ash boards.  (Rough cut ash and poplar look a lot alike.)  One of our two boards was not straight enough for oars so we were only able to cut three blanks.  This gives me a reason to call John again and get back to the lumber yard.

The blanks are cut to 1 & 3/8 ths inches square.  The next step is to order a larger round-over bit for the router. We are looking forward to making these oars.

The ash is sailing through the table saw.

Once you have a clean cut on it, it is a very familiar looking wood,

(every wooden baseball bat you have ever seen).