I spent some time on an often overlooked but important piece of equipment - The paddle.
Surprise's paddle was in sad shape: the varnish was badly chipped away, a part of the handle had split off, and the the paddle section itself was developing cracks.
I spent some time sanding off the remaining varnish and reattached the broken part of the handle. More sanding was done with 220 grit. Then I filled the cracks with wood putty.
I wanted to identify the paddle as belonging to Surprise, so I printed out a logo on my printer, taped it to the paddle and took an exacto knife and cut away a stencil. Then I used some left over blue paint and filled in the stencil.
Peeling the tape away after it dried revealed a nice looking logo. Next I applied five coats of varnish, sanding lightly in between each coat. So that I could varnish both sides at the same time, I hung the paddle from a rafter in the garage by a loop in a piece of line around the paddle handle.
Posted by Bob at November 19, 2003 01:06 PM