Hey All,
Is this the right place to talk about building paddles?
I would like to see what others have built over the years.
I have built quie a few paddles over the last few years.
I will see if I can get some decent pictures of them and post them.
Canoedog

A double blader I made using leftover wood from my stripper....

I've made a few paddles. Perhaps I will again some day, but I certainly can't make one better than I can buy. Mine turn out to heavy and thick. I guess I worry about breaking them.

I've made a double blade, a sugar island, a beavertail, a couple others. One weird experiment I did was try to build a replica of the paddles used in the movie "Lord of the Rings". Totally heavy, clucky, and not practical at all. It would have been OK if it suitable for display ... but no. I was going to burn it but my kids made me keep it. It's buried in a shed somewhere.

The other paddles are gone, too. Gave them away.

Still, I would encourage others to make one. I spent many happy hours in the basement making wood shavings using a shavehorse and spokenshave. :)

We made a paddle out of Cherry and Ash laminated with Titebond III and finished throughout with (real) tung oil and pure gum turpentine and boiled linseed oil.

It was a gosh awful amount of work to pare it all down. The stinker wound up weighing in at 3 tons. Sortof.

I might be able to scrounge up some pics. But it's just a basic Beaver Tail slimmed down a bit.

I will say this though. I am SERIOUSLY impressed with Titebond III for a laminating glue for paddle making. We made some paper thin translucent curls come off that paddle where the Ash and Cherry met and even that paper thin glue line was stronger than the surrounding wood. And flexible!

These are some I made earlier in the year. I wish I had made the shaft a bit larger in circumference. Tip: Use a large radius roundover bit in a router to do the majority of the shaping of the shaft for you, then finish the final shaping by hand.

Mark - that's some nice work. What glue did you use for laminating your woods?

I see you're a guitar builder. Where would one acquire plans to make a guitar?

woodbender-

I used the titebond 3 as well. I laminated 4oz fiberglass cloth to the blade using West Systems Epoxy and made a solid resin tip using epoxy and sanding dust.

As for guitar building- I only build acoustics so I know more about those. A good place to start is by reading William Cumpiano's Guitarmaking. You can order it at most book stores, I bought it at a barnes and Noble and they occasionally have it in stock.

If you want to start with a kit

Grizzly tools carries some and Stewart Macdonald and Luthiers Mercantile are good places to look for tools/supplies/kits/ etc...

Hey All,
Some pics of some of the paddles I've made.
They are all out of salvaged wood form various
construction demolitions, and wood picked up on various trips.
They have a polycarbonate rock guard let in around the edge and
are covered on both faces with 4oz fiberglass.
Weight are approx. 20-28 oz.

I am planning on doing a couple of bent shafts this winter.
Canoedog