De Pan

Blog reader Luc Poitras was kind enough to send me some pics of his 3 beautiful Malecite style paddles, complete with incising decorations and carved drip rings.


Luc's 3 Paddles
The short paddle on the left and the one on the right are made from maple. The long paddle in the middle is made from stained cedar. Here are some closeups of the blades and grips. Definitely motivating to try some incising work on some of my future paddles.


Incised Blade details; Grip shapes
Luc also sent a photo of his 3 crooked knives which are works of art themselves. One knife is made from an old straight razor blade and the other two made from files. The bulk of the paddles were carved with these knives and a small spokeshave. Fantastic work Luc!


3 Crooked Knives

Paddle carver Luc Poitras sent in pics of his latest Malecite style paddle complete with carved drip rings, blade spine and decorative etching. This beauty is made from yellow birch and carved entirely with a crooked knife...no spokeshave or sanding.









Given my own experience with a tough yellow birch board that was frustratingly difficult to carve, Luc's all hand carved paddle is amazing.

Another one of the paddles on my ever growing "to do list" is the 1896 Malecite St.John River Paddle documented in Adney's Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America.  The blade looks to be standard beavertail with a distinct spine, but the grip has some rectangular features and a carved drip ring which suites the paddle nicely.



Adney's St. John Malecite Pattern
After casually examining some of my books the other day, I recognized this grip pattern on the cover of Graham Warren's must have paddle making book, Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own. The grip is featured near the bottom right of his book cover..



G Warren's book cover, St.John Malecite grip on lower right
Warren's first publication (which I blogged about here) has a complete illustration with a table of offsets for this pattern as well. Graham has also graciously re-published an article on his website entitled The Malecite St.John River Paddle (.pdf format) that appeared in Open Canoe in 1996 which features the detailed pattern for anyone interested in this design. The 2011 article entitled "Know Your Paddles" by Beth Stanley in Canadian Woodworking also has a closeup shot of this grip featured below.



St. John River Malecite Grip
At this stage though, it'll be while before I start this one. Still waiting to be completed is the decoration on the Yellow Birch York Sunbury replica. Plus I've been working on some more canoe related homemade camping gear that'll be posted on soon.