Last Sunday while waiting for the keel to dry I decided to make a sculling oar from a cypress 2x6 I bought from the sawmill. I used the sketch on the bottom of Figure 2 here http://councill.home.mindspring.com/sbjournal/sculling/scull2.html as a guide, but I made it 10' long instead of 7 1/2'. If it is too long it will be easy to shorten it. I first made a template fron some scrap plywood left over from the hull panels and used it to mark the cypress plank. I then cut the oar out using a jigsaw. The blade was too wide to completely cut with the jigsaw so a circular saw was use to rough it out and an electric planer was used to shape it to its final size. The shaft was made into an octagon using the jigsaw set at a 45. The shaft was then rounded off using a power sander and some emery cloth. The result is not very pretty, but it should be functional. The oar is visible in the first photo between the boat and the remainder of the board from which it was cut .
This morning my brother came over and helped me glue the keel and bilge keels in place. We dry fit the pieces in place and masked the area of the hull adjacent to them with masking tape. This kept the glue in the right place and made clean up easier. The excess glue was used to fill in the gap at the bow as the keel there is wider than the plywood hull. The process went smoothly with the extra help. Monday I will remove the temporary screws and fillet the keels so they can be glassed.
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