woodworking with handtools

Not me because I'm lazy, but my colleague followed a YouTube guide and made a great looking paddle he's used while out with us. I think it was this one.

It goes from log to paddle, but he used a pre-cut board and skipped a few of the steps. He used an axe and a draw knife mainly.

Hatchet, drawknife, spokeshave and a rasp.

Paddles were the first project every camper did at the summer camp I went to as a child. They were small and more decorative, but the theory is probably the same. We used coping saws to rough out the shape, and drawknifes and spokeshaves to finish. They were all from one piece of stock, though.

On a bigger paddle you might need/want to glue multiple pieces together for the blade, depending on the width. If that's the case, you'll also want a saw that will cut a straight line, and planes to square up each side so they can be glued together. This is a guess, though, as i've never made a full sized paddle.

For a paddle— a spokeshave, a #4 plane, a card scraper are what comes to mind.

A jigsaw will do just about as well as a bandsaw for getting the shape roughed out, and they're inexpensive.