I finally did buy a long desired band saw before making my first paddle. Before the purchase, I had planned to use a standard Skil-type 7 1/4 inch saw for the long cuts... cutting away the paddle faces. I would have left a safety margin, and flipped the board over to complete the cuts. If we're thinking of the same 'jigsaw', you could not do the same, because the blade would be bottoming out in the cut. And, it would take forever.

: After calling a bunch of the wood supplies in the "Where the
: heck do I find clear cedar 2x4's" thread and finding out
: they don't carry clear within 2 hours of me, I went back to the
: local yards and found a couple oversized peices with clear
: enough 2 x 4 sections to make whole paddles and have clear wood
: leftover for blades in a laminated one. So I'm in business...

: ...sort of.

: I looked at Matt Johnson's video on carving, and I notice he
: mentions that block planing the initial long cuts would take
: forever, so he just uses a band saw. My question is, would a
: jigsaw work on these? I know the blade can angle in a bit, so I
: was thinking I if I stayed 1/4" outside the line and planed
: the rest I might get away with it.

: Will that work? Other options?