Wooden Oars
These oars are available as plans. Details>>Discover their features below, read testimonials from people who have built them, and place your order for plans.
Economical Option for Beautiful Oars
There's no getting around it: finished sculling oars are expensive! A pair of fiberglass or carbon-fiber oars range in price from $500 to $700. And you simply cannot use standard wooden oars in a sliding seat rowing system. An alternative is to build your own hollow-shaft wooden oars at a fraction of the cost. We provide comprehensive plans and instructions to get you going. For more information on sculling oars please visit our page Everything You Need to Know About Sculling Oars.
Hollow-shaft spoon-blade sculling oars are not only economical, but also beautiful. If you’ve spent months building a gorgeous wooden rowing vessel, a couple of gleaming varnished sculling oars are the icing on the cake. It is, however, a serious time commitment taking 30-50 hours to complete. Material costs when building from plans can range from $50-$150.
Our prototype and show oars were built for less than $30 a pair and with the most basic low-budget tools to demonstrate that fine oars really can be built in a regular home workshop.
Designed for Competitive Sliding Seat Rowing
Hollow shaft wooden sculling oars used to be standard for competitive sliding seat rowing. It wasn’t until the 1980s when Olympic rowers started switching to lighter synthetic substitutes. While carbon fiber oars are lighter than wood, the difference in weight is not as great as one might assume. A well-made wooden hollow-shaft sculling oar weighs about 4.5 lbs. (weight varies slightly depending on wood density and finish), while a carbon fiber oar of equivalent length is about 3.5 lbs. This difference in weight, while important in high-end competitive racing, is not such a big deal for performance recreational rowing.
The engineering behind our design is not new. The shaft is constructed to the same specs that have been developed by top engineers, and tried and tested for decades in the competitive racing world. We have, however, tweaked the blade shape and design to simplify construction as much as possible. Most importantly, we have spent months dissecting the build process, distilling it into a simple step-by-step method that can be accomplished by first time oar builders.
Click on the image below to view photos of the Hollow-Shaft Wooden Oars.
Easy to Build from Plans or a Kit
Our full-sized plans are printed on a 10’ x 3’ sheet and are accompanied by a 27-page illustrated manual.
The oars are 9’ 6”, the standard length for sculling. Length, however, can easily be customized for personal preference. Please note that all sculling oars require oar buttons (collars to keep them in position at the oarlock).
Expensive specialized tools are not required. The main tools needed are a table saw, chisel, block plane, utility knife and an assortment of clamps.
Please view our Build Gallery below to view the step by step building process. There are images and a description of each step of the building process (click on the 3 dots below the description to see the rest).
Additionally, Andre J Bachman produced a beautiful video of the construction process, which you can see at this link.
Can these Plans be Used for Fixed-Seat Oars?
While these instruction/plans are for sculling oars, they can be adapted for building solid-shaft fixed-seat oars. The refined shape of sculling blades provide unsurpassed looks and performance suitable for all rowing craft.Build from Plans
Plans Include :
Plans 10' x 3'Manual. To view sample chapter Click Here
Price: $48
Hollow-Shaft Sculling Oar Plans Pricing
Plans and Manual $48 USD
Oar Partial Kit $112 USD
Testimonials
Find out what other people have to say about their experience building Hollow-Shaft Wooden Oars.
| I'm an happy builder /rower from Norway. Last winter I built a boat and sliding seat rig clc boat and glen l marine. and oars from your plans. The plans were very good. Oar works great. Thank you. - Stein O., Norway |
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| Thanks so much for these designs, blown away every day. - Carter W., Alaska |  |
| Almost finished with the oars. Everything went smoothly and the plans worked great. - Dave G., Connecticut | |
| Thank you very much for your plans and your instruction, both are easy to understand and to use :-). - Ruedi S., Switzerland |  |
