Over the last two days, I have worked on sanding down the hull and coating the various pieces for the hatch hold down system and the deck rigging pieces with epoxy. Unfortunately, my orbital sander got aggressive in a few spots and I had to lay down a couple of glass patches, which have now received their third coat of epoxy. Tomorrow night, I plan to feather those out and apply the first of the two final skim coats to the hull.

Here is a picture that shows the hold down and deck rigging pieces, as well as a paddle park that I've made which will use the deck bungie to hold the paddle in place. These are all made from hard maple.

I've also been working on a paddle, and I smoothed down the shaft, tapered the ends and glued on the blades on Sunday night. Yesterday, sanded down both sides of the blades and used sandpaper and a wood rasp to shape the transition from blade to shaft. I also applied the first of two coats of epoxy to the blades. Tonight, I applied a second coat of epoxy to the blades and a coat to the shaft. After this has been sanded smooth with 220 grit, the whole paddle will get a couple of coats of varnish. The shaft is cherry and the blade is maple in the center, and then alternating bubinga/cherry/bubinga on each side. The tips are hard maple which has been glued on with a lap joint.

The blades started out as a laminated 7/8" blank which was then resawn down to 3/8, and planed down to 1/4. I then taped up the blanks and cut the shape out on the bandsaw before smoothing on a sanding disk. The blades are feathered approximately 75 degrees.