laminated blade paddle

[Hirilonde]

I have been searching the net for plans on building a contemporary scooped blade wooden paddle for a while now. I don't like anything I have found really. So I then decided I would nead to come up with my own process to build a paddle that was similar in shape to the $500 carbon fiber ones offered on line and in the high end kayak shops. Mine will weigh a little more, but I don't really see the need for a 23 oz. paddle when I can probably make one that ends up at less than 3 pounds with the beauty of wood. I have figured out the whole process and started on the blades.

The blades are made out of scraps from my "almost ready to throw away pile" of rip cut-offs. My first set are made out of the thin strips of Alaskan Yellow Cedar left over from ripping stringers for my Curlew and some shorts of Dark Red Meranti from various projects. I ripped all the stock down to a very weak 1/8". I matched a pair of glue up schedules of various widths to end up with a matching mirrored pair of 3 laminations. This way both blades will be identical but mirrored.

The loom will be solid Alaskan Yellow Cedar as I have fallen in love with the stuff for it's stength, relatively light weight and ease for shaping. The blades will be glued (epoxy) to the looms when they are partially made so that I can finish shaping a smooth transition from loom to blade. I have the design in mind, but won't start until the blades are ready. More on this later............

I researched the curve many have used and decided on the shape I would use. The first step was to build a mold that would shape my glue up and secure it while the epoxy cured. This is what I came up with:

The blank for a blade comes out looking like this:

while in the mold and.............

taken out of the mold and inverted

After sanding and cutting out the blade shape on the band saw it looks like this.......

I will hold off on the final tapering of the edges and other details until I have made the looms and done a dry fit. I want a really nice tranition from the loom to the blades and I want them off-set by 90 degrees. I think this process will work as the mold and glue up process came out better than I expected for a first try.

[woodman]

Good looking blade...similar to mine only the wood is laid up differently...

The shaft is cedar with a walnut stiffener on the backside..

[Hirilonde]

Well, I made the loom, glued on the blades and finished shaping it all

I think I will coat the blades in epoxy first. Not so much to make them more waterproof, though it will do that, as to offer a little abrasion resistance. I think I will make some drip catchers too. Back to work....................

[chris.lewis.425]

That is beautiful. Care to share your blade shape and profile with fellow builders?

Chris in Seattle

[woodman]

My blade shape I used came from ,The new kayak shop book ,plus the idea from a cheap curved plastic bladed paddle I have.

Hirilonde ..The bottom edge of the blade that turnes back toward the shaft on mine allows water to drip off their before reaching the shaft.

[ricknriver]

Beautiful work gentlemen, but I do worry the weight in my yak (and canoe) paddles. The diff between 23 oz and 43 oz does show up when cruisers are doing about 40+ strokes a min: 40x60min=2.4K/hour x 4 hr cruise =9,600/cruise. Weight can matter. Just thoughts. R

[Hirilonde]

My blade shape I used came from ,The new kayak shop book ,plus the idea from a cheap curved plastic bladed paddle I have.

Hirilonde ..The bottom edge of the blade that turnes back toward the shaft on mine allows water to drip off their before reaching the shaft.

Chris, I got my shape and curve in a similar manner as woodman

woodman, my paddle is a feathering paddle, so the return won't help much as the blade is horizantel on the recovery side.

Final weight after epoxy is 41 oz.. I appreciate Rick that this might be a little more tiresome than the 23 oz. carbon fiber paddle, but I have no interest in vacuum bagging carbon cloth or paying $500. I didn't spend $500 on my kayak. That and I am too vane to use plastic and composite paddles. I am a wood snob I must admit. Factor in that the purpose for kayaks for my wife and myself is for exercise and something we can do together. Hmmm, Ipe would weigh almost twice, maybe for exercise I should make one out of that?

[Lombard]

Dave, nice work! I would be interested on your experience, when you paddle your kayak with this laminated paddle, as opposed to the Greenland paddle you crafted?

[P Doug (WA)]

Fine work.

[P Doug (WA)]

I've been eyeballing you paddle again, plus looking at this site:http://ngc704.home.comcast.net/~ngc704/paddles/ . I'm very tempted to try a birds mouth (BM) shaft. More for the experience working with birds mouth than any other reason. I have to build a BM mast one of these days for my mini-cup and this would give me some good cheap practice. Wish I had some of that yellow cedar available up in my neck of the woods. I'm pretty limited to red cedar from the local big box stores.

[Hirilonde]

My shaft is solid. I don't think making a birdsmouth loom would save much weight and the staves would have to be miniscule. The loom is 1 1/4" in diameter. It just amazes me when I hear that people have such a poor choice in lumber. I live in the most rural section of RI and I can get anything I want within an hour of home. The ALC comes from 6 miles away. Most of it is used to plank decks and make railings for them.

[P Doug (WA)]

I think for the most part the east coast has a wider selection of woods than the west coast. Plus there is a much larger population of boat builders. I have to travel to the Seattle area or Portland to get much. That's 4 hours away.

The staves would be 1/2" X 1/4". Yep pretty small but it will be fun to try. If it gets too difficult I will go solid. But like I said, it could give me some practice.

[Kudzu]

I am just as amazed when I hear someone say they can get anything they want within an hour! :-)

[Rex Maddy]

Dave, That is a great paddle. I like the idea for the trip edge too. I made a greenland paddle in Washington State and had UPS ship it back to Indiana. It was broken in the middle - don't label anything 'handle with care' that just tee's off the guys on the dock.

I glued it together and it works well. I am just in enough shallow water that the greenland style isn't what I need a lot of the time.

Someday I will try to make one of these, like you my wife and I do this for exercise and sightseeing, weight is not always a big deal for us.

[P Doug (WA)]

Mr. Hirilonde, I have a question. I hope I can ask it so you understand what I am asking. So here goes:

Did you glue the strips of wood together before you glued the layers together? Or did you glue every thing at once when you put it in the press?

[Hirilonde]

Or did you glue every thing at once when you put it in the press?

Yes. I made sure that each layer of strips was exactly the same width in total, even though they were made of different width strips and that this total width was just barely wider than the form/mold. I covered the bottom of the form in waxed paper. I wet out the top of the bottom layer of strips and placed them on the mold. I wet out the top of the second layer of strips and placed them on top of the first layer. I placed the top layer of strips on top of the second. Then covered the top layer with waxed paper. I clamped the top of the mold down just shy of squashed tight. Then I used short bar clamps to bring all the strips together within the mold (this is why each layer must be the same width in total). In my first picture you see the whole thing clamped together, but the clamps drawing the strips together have already been removed. Then I finished tightening the top down on the form. I wasn't worried about gluing the strips to each other within a layer as it is such a messy project that this just happens by itself. And by pressing the mold most of the way before clamping the strips tight to each other plenty of epoxy is forced between them. It's definitely a messy and somewhat tedious process. So much so that you should lay out plastic on your work surface to catch all the epoxy that oozes out. I recommend trying it dry first to get a feel for what you are up against. There is a learning curve to it that is really impossible to properly explain. Even if the joints between strips aren't perfectly tight they will be filled with epoxy and plenty strong. It is just a matter of looks that makes tight joints more desirable.

[P Doug (WA)]

Thanks, that's the way I did it, just wondering if I did it the same or if you had a secret I didn't know about, I'll see how I did tomorrow when I remove the clamps. I had to use Stretch-tite, didn't have an wax paper. Hope it works, if not I start over. This is my setup.

[Hirilonde]

I am looking forward to seeing your blades and the completed paddle. That mold and the way you clamped it sure looks like it will work.

I am working on my wife's paddle now. It is a lot like mine, but with parallel blades instead of feathering off-set ones. I guess next I will have to try making a birdsmouth loom. Paddles are like boats, you can't have too many.

[P Doug (WA)]

I was thinking of not feathering this first one. It will be the spare I carry and not feathered it well be easier to fit/secure in the bungee straps. Besides, I'm not looking for speed, just easy calm water paddleing. Last night, laying in bed and trying to go to sleep, I pictured a Greenland paddle, feathered (?). Could do it with scarf joints.

Oh, ya, the blade poped out of the mold nicely this AM. Not bad looking for a first try.

[Kudzu]

The reason for feather shafts is to minimize the wind pulling on the shaft and trying to rip it out of our hands. There is absolutely no reason to feather a Greenland, it would totally mess up your stroke.

I have paddle in wind so hard I had to look at shore to tell if I was moving backward or standing still with a Greenland and it would just barely trying to move the paddle around