> Anybody have a good way to round off a paddle shaft? The best I've come up
> with is a pair of praces to hold it up and let it rotate so you can clamp
> it in any position, and then plane and sand. I hand sand with a broken
> belt wrapped around the shaft. Aside from a big lathe, any better ideas?

Consider cutting the rough shape on a band saw, then round the edges with a large-radius rounding-over bit in a router. Something on the order of a 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch radius should be a good start. If you are not going to use these often, consider cheaper bits made of high speed steel. There is such a lot of expensive carbide on a bit with such a large cutting edge as this that the expense might not be practical.

here is a link to Woodcraft, which shows a picture of the bit and the cut that it makes. Of course, you would make cuts on all four edges, not just the one edge shown, in order to round the shaft.

http//www.woodcraft.com/website/itempg.icl?secid=54&subsecid=274&orderidentifier=ID933395891578395874691D7B61&itmid=10561&dirpage=dir2&eflag=0&curitempos=29&numitems=36&ORDERIDENTIFIER=ID933395891578395874691D7B61

The URL is a bit long. If it hangs up, try www.woodcraft.com to get you to their home page, and you can search for router bits, and then rounding over bits.

Nail a couple of sections of 2 x 4 to your workbench, and lay the paddle between them. The 2x4s will act as a solid base for the router to ride on, and you can probably set them so that they act as straight guides for the router, too. since the 2x4s are probably thicker than the handle of your paddle will be, some shims from scrap wood placed under the paddle will bring it up to the proper height.

I'm afraid it is sandpaper after that.

If you rout a groove in a block of 2x4 and loosely lay a sheet of sandpaper over it, you can use this as a sanding block. It will give you something to grip. Thumbtack will keep the sandpaper from getting loose, and the shape you cut in the block will serve as a pattern for removing material from the paddle handle. The exact shape you cut in the 2x4 is not going to be too critical if you move the block a bit around the handle a bit with each stroke.

Hope this helps.

Paul G. Jacobson