Well, one will be solid fiberglass, another fiberglass-covered foam. For the solid fiberglass, I cut the side off of a 5 gallon HDPE bucket and laid it out on a piece of plywood so that it had about 1" of curvature. I brushed epoxy on the plastic, then laid several layers glass in the liquid epoxy. I let the glass cure when all the layers were wet out. I peeled the glass off the plastic and cut it to shape. This curved blade was then epoxied to a wood shaft.

I don't have any pictures of my original paddle, but I'll get some of the finished product (complete with scratches, dings, etc.)

On the following page, I drew a couple images on how I laminated my wood shafts, and went into a little more detail on the blade construction.

For my third paddle, I'll build woodstrip blades as described in Nick's book.

Wow! Six paddles? I hope you made them slightly different so you can learn more about what you like. I just made one last spring; I'm making these 3 from what I learned on the first one, and I'm sure there will be more iterations next year.

Shawn

> What do you mean by a solid fiberglass blade. Did you combine wood with
> foam or what. I was unclear. I have made six paddles recently and I am
> planning to make some more after what I learned on the first. If the
> photos detail what you are saying no need to repond. Brian.