<\/p>\n

I have a couple of projects sitting on the back burner. \u00a0Recently I felt like moving one to the front burner would be helpful. \u00a0I am designing a new paddle from a friend’s paddle company. \u00a0We’ve been talking about it for over a year now, and he sent me a few rough cut blanks a month ago. They’ve been leaning against a corner of my shop, waiting for a time when I would feel good about starting the process.<\/p>\n

I was a little impulsive last night and decided to go take a look at the blanks, sketch on them a little, maybe start the process of removing all the wood that isn’t paddle. \u00a0It’s not that hard once you have the right shape in your brain. \u00a0You just have to be mindful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I took the first blank, sketched a few lines on it, cut away some big chunks and started with my bowyer’s drawknife. \u00a0I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing, I was just hogging out wood to get a rough shape. \u00a0The bowyer’s knife is an effective tool and I scraped and pulled for ten or fifteen minutes.<\/p>\n

When I came back to myself I realized I had taken off way too much wood on one side of the grip. \u00a0That blank, for all intents and purposes, was kindling. I had taken a piece of black willow and instead of liberating the potential paddle from its encasement, I had defiled it. \u00a0I felt like a surgeon who kept cutting after the tumor had been excised, except in this case, there would be no dramatic consequences and no malpractice lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Still, I felt like crap. It wasn’t that I had ruined a good piece of wood, that was just annoying. \u00a0What really bothered me was my complete lack of mindfulness as I cranked away at the wood like it was an annoyance, a barrier to my real goal of getting out the pattern-making rasp and fine-shaping the grip. \u00a0I was totally in the future. I was nowhere near the present. \u00a0As a result, I didn’t get to carve that grip into what I wanted to. \u00a0I was thinking about tying my shoes and didn’t even have my socks on yet.<\/p>\n

The good news is that my friend Ed knows how I think and because he’s a good guy, sent me three different blanks. \u00a0I am still kicking myself for trashing one of them, but it was a good lesson, and it forced me to calm down, focus, and get busy on the second blank.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This time, I was mindful.<\/p>\n

A little slower with the drawknife, a little slower with the plane, a little slower with the rasp. \u00a0Sanded with 120 to show flaws and imperfections. \u00a0Here’s the outcome of the first shaping. \u00a0We’re symmetrical, pretty clean, and ready to proceed (carefully) with the spokeshaves and rasps.<\/p>\n

It was a good thing this happened. \u00a0It reminded me of how easy it is to lose the way.<\/p>\n

It also reminded me of the words of a mentor who I never met. \u00a0Don Fogg was the mentor of my blacksmithing mentor, Larry Cooper. \u00a0His website (no longer online) was so impactful I downloaded it before he took it down for good.<\/p>\n