I used a jigsaw to rough out the shape of the loom, shoulders, and edges of the blades. As for the paddle faces, I just used a good sized block plane. Must've taken me four to six hours to get them knocked down.

Might be just me, but I prefer using the block plane. I can't wait to get my hands on a good drawknife or spoke shave for the loom. It's a quite a bit slower using the hand tools, but it's easier to get precise. Gives me time to look things over and make sure I'm doing them right. I might be getting nostalgic, but it *feels* better, too.

-- Noel

: 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?