Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Friday 19 April 2019

Dinghy cruising in a Welsford navigator - oar making 5

When you don't have a band saw that cuts a straight line, oar making can be tricky. Having laminated three planks and cleaned up the epoxy dribbles, it was time to rough cut out the two oars. Starting by marking on the oar outlines, jigsaw, Japanese saw and handsaw were gathered and the plank laid out on two chairs.

wooden oar blanks

The jigsaw was tough going even with new blades and pendulum action and so most of the plank was cut using the carpenter's handsaw. Suffice to say, just cutting the plank in two took over an hour!



Now, its time to make a series of vertical little cuts up to the marked out lines before then returning the oars to the chair set up and vertically close trimming the oars to the marked lines. Thus will pass at least another day in cutting wood. After that, the side profiles will be marked on and the vertical cutting will start all over again.




Oh what I would give for a decent band saw!

6 comments:

Enrico said...

wow, great work! They look to be really solid oars.

Adamsboatworks said...

Hello Steve, Just wondering where are your rowlocks located on Arwen? I don't see a location for them shown on my plan set. If I missed it would you tell me where to look?

Thanks and have much fun with your new oars.

Geoff

steve said...

Hi Geoff. Away from boat at moment but it was trial and error. Mine are roughly 8 inches back from the aft end of the centre case. If you go to www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy and look at a couple of my videos...you will see where they are. When I uncover boat next I will try to get precise measurement

steve said...

Enrico - thanks - making oars is proving more taxing than I first thought!! Hope you are well and enjoying life. Have a good summer sailing season.

Adamsboatworks said...

So then do you sit on the centercase top when you row? That sounds very uncomfortable. Have a comfy arrangement for that do you?

steve said...

Yes to centrecase, just cushion. I will try to row standing up and facing forward with new oars. Just have to work out how to do that