Epoxy oar tips

I was wondering if anyone has any experience epoxy-tipping their oars

I'm making a pair right now, I've got to wood glued up and I'm thinking to apply epoxy to the tips before I cut the taper in the blades. I plan on wrapping the tips in masking tape so the tape overhangs the end of the oar a bit, then putting the oar vertical, end-up and pouring an epoxy-graphite-cabosil mixture onto the end (maybe 1/4 - 3/8" thick)

Next step would be to cut the blade shape and taper with the bandsaw. My main concern is that my bandsaw won't be able to cut through several inches of toughened epoxy resin.

Anyone have experience with this?

 

Shape the tip as you would normally, then I use one of two methods: the first is to just the tip off, say an inch or two up from the end and then epoxy this cut off piece back onto the blade. It serves as a moisture break and sacrificial tip if broken off. The second method does the same thing, except I don't glue the cut off tip portion back on the blade, but just make an all epoxy tip to replace it. It can be quickly and simply cast in a plaster mold and makes a tough, if slightly heavier tip.

 

I really like the idea of just slicing it off and gluing back on, however, I didn't check my email last night, so I just blazed ahead with my plan.

Good news is it seemed to turn out pretty well, here are the pictures

This is what the setup looked like, I taped around the end, clamped the oars to the rafters in my garage so they were vertical, and poured in the graphite-thickened-epoxy.

Here is the other oar with the tape removed. On the left side of the oar I took a little slice off with the bandsaw, which cut it no problem. It's a little hard to see, but the outer 3/16" or so (which was the top of the epoxy puddle when the oar was upright) is almost all bubbles, which is no big deal, since there's enough solid epoxy on the tip of the oar (I'll just cut off the bubbles), but if I did this again I might pour in a thicker layer to account for the bubbles.

Also I made some cuts down into the oar both for the cool stylings and the extra hold.

As a side note, the bubbly part of the epoxy is actually quite cool, it's kinda soft and spongy, I could imagine some cool stuff that could be made out of bubbly epoxy foam.