Simple 8' oar design

[VT_Jeff]

I want to make some new oars for my driftboat and was trying to think of the simplest design/procure/build. This idea uses 3 8' X .75 X 2.25 strips.

Two of the strips will be cut into two pieces at about 24".

The shorter pieces will become the blade wings.

The three long pieces are then laid up and rounded with a spar gauge and hand plane.

The blades will get shaped by whatever means necessary, spokshave, drawknife, block plane, router bit,, etc.

Will probably just use poplar as it is readily available, cheap, and from what I've read, perfectly acceptable or material.

Any feedback/opinions welcome.

Thanks,

jeff

[Typhoon]

I built some oars not too long ago, it's quite an intuitive process once you get started.
I made my blades out of curved plywood, but my oars were built purely for rowing distances and exercise, so the extra eficiency was worth the effort for me. The other advantages of a plywood blade are ease of replacement if badly damaged and ease of experimentation with different blades if you choose to chase efficiency.
The blades being one piece with the loom as you intend to do makes for a very nice general purpose, strong oar that looks really nice.
Be sure to pick or cut the grain carefully for your looms, a bit of runout may not be a big deal when you have them laminated into a square section, but once you start removing stock, it can cause the loom to curve if you have a piece of wood in there that ends up larger than the other and has some grain curve or runout. I have ended up with a slightly cuurved loom on one of my oars, not enough to scrap the oar, but it annoys me.

[VT_Jeff]

Thanks for the input. I'm interested to know how the plywood blades are attached, I'm picturing the loom being forked, is that accurate?