> 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?

This is how I made mine:

Starting with a square shaft the approximate diameter you need, measure the end and mark an octagon on the end of the wood, then make a little jig that will hold a pencil so that you can mark the edges of the octagonal face along the shaft. Use a plane or spokeshave (I used a spokeshave) to plane the shaft into an octagonal section by planing the corners down to the lines you have marked. Then plane the corners of the octagon to make a sixteen sided section (this step can be eyeballed.) Clamp the shart and sand with a section of sanding belt passed around the shaft and pulled back and forth until it gets round. This took me a couple of hours, and if it's not perfectly round, it's beyond my ability to find any flaws in it.

Good luck.