JEM Watercraft

Javier,

The "judgement" and "expertise" of all of us is colored by our experience and training. Others will advise you in their way; here's mine.

For straight paddling across wide waters, a bent paddle is faster and more efficient. For maneuvering, turning, catching yourself to prevent capsizing, etc., they are much less predictable. For a beginner, I would recommend a simple, straight paddle (length to be determined by Matt's formulae) with a wide blade and a reinforced tip to withstand rough usage & rocks.

After you get acquainted with your boat & paddle, then you can start adding paddles for special jobs, and keep the original as a very dependable back up paddle.

I personally think it is an error to begin a sport with the latest in up-to-date equipment. I believe we should progress through (at least some of) the stages of development in the equipment. This teaches us knowledge about the sport, to appreciate the newer stuff, and to judge just how far equipment has progressed, and whether that advancement is functional or merely cosmetic.

And, when a piece of modernistical equipment breaks, we know more about how to get through with something a bit more primitive.

Not everyone will agree with this approach. That's OK with me.

The paddle is 61 inches with the blade at 22 inches from where it meets the shaft and 6 1/4 wide with the sides tapering down to 3/16 th of an inch. It weighs 30.5 oz, which is about a middle weight paddle and ( BEST OF ALL ) cost nothing since everything was left overs.

The blade is more or less straight with the middle thicker then the edges, tapered from the center out and it might have a small dish to it.
.
I have some of the $15.00 wood ones here from Wally world that I use and one of them was the paddle I took the measurements from to make this one.
One modification was making the blade slightly longer then the ones from Wally world. Theirs are 60 inches with a blade width of 6 inches and 19 1/2 from where the blade meets the shaft.

The nice thing when you make your own ... it is just like the boat, made the way you want it. I like a 60 (or more) inch paddle for paddling solo.

When I made it I gave myself a lot of room for errors, the shaft was 8 feet before being trimmed down, I also cut and sanded a lot off the blade because it started out at 3 feet but only 6 1/4 wide and 5/8's of an inch thick. Again a lot of room and sanding space to work with in case of any goof ups.

Chuck.

Awesome! As Kayak Jack says, I need to start with something basic. I don't know enough about my preferences to customize it much. I'll go with your dimensions and err on the side of bigger - it's a lot easier to make a paddle smaller, since my board stretcher is broken.
BTW, I'm also making these paddles entirely from extra wood from other projects, so they'll be "free." Mahogany, Cherry, Walnut and a piece of Redheart that should add some zing!

Now, do you just epoxy coat or glass the paddle? I *love* the blade edge protector you made from epoxy and wood flour, BTW. I'll definitely do that.

Nothing but epoxy and some filleting with the wood flour. The blade could be glassed for more protection if a person wanted to, it would not hurt but does add weight.

I ran 4 strips side by side for the shaft and then one over each side where you could see the 4 sections. When it set up then I filleted the 90 degree area between those two strips and the main ones to fill it in .... Let that set up then sanded the whole shaft into the round shape I wanted after the blade sections and the extentions for the wider part of the grip were attached.

The two dark lines running down the entire shaft are the sections I filleted with the epoxy and wood flour.

You can get messy because everything will be sanded to shape it, lots of sanding, lots and lots of sanding after it is together.

Chuck

So, did you put the wood strips together wth epoxy or wood glue? Reading back over your description you say "glue" not epoxy. It sounds like you used wood glue for the laminations. Is epoxy not suitable for lamination? Did you use plain wood glue, exterior wood glue, or something like gorilla glue?
Do I ask a lot of questions? Huh do I? do I?

For the paddle I used epoxy as the glue, brushed it on each strip. After it was shaped and sanded or sanded and shaped a lot more epoxy to epoxy saturate it. I think it was three coats of epoxy to seal the wood. Then some varnish.

I used Tightbond Wood Glue (Ace Hardware sells it) to glue the strips I cut to make the panels for the pirogue. Then lots of epoxy saturation to make sure the panels would stay together.

Chuck.

Oh, a couple more questions:

What is the shaft diameter, and did you taper the shaft? I'm wondering what's comfortable for the average hand.

I like around 30 to 32mm (1 1/16 to 1 1/8 inches), around 48 to 50 inches long. (total) I believe Americans generally tend to prefer a longer paddle shaft. I also prefer a longer blade around 150mm wide. (6in.)

Matt, Have you thought about designing a canoe paddle?
I've been playing with some ideas but I'm having trouble coming up with an easy way to make the round shaft and to keep it uniform over its length.

As best as I can guess the main shaft is about an inch and not tapered. Just rounded off with a power hand sander and then with a chunk of sandpaper. It is tapered where the shaft and blade comes together.

The old idea of taking a square object and sanding off the 4 corners, then go back and sand off those 8 corners then just keep repeating the process till it is round and smooth.

Chuck.

For the paddle I am working on, I used a piece of "5/4" basswood that is 1 and 1/8" in diameter, it seems to be about perfect. I used a 3/8" quarter round bit in my router, but if I had a 1/2" quarter round bit it might have been better. As you can see from the picture I still have a lot of sanding to do. If anyone is interested I plan on making the template for this particular blade shape available in a pdf to share.