> I spent some more time this past weekend working on a Greenland paddle
> (building to Chuck Holst's plans). I didn't get as far as being able to
> use my light glass on the blades (I forgot to multiple my building-time
> estimate by 3). But, I did get as far as rough shaping. Still need to work
> on rounding the blade edges, it's close to it's final shape. I decided to
> pop it onto the scale (a food scale works well) 'cause it felt on the
> heavy side. It came in at 3 lbs; ouch! It will be like paddling with a
> barbell.

> Now, I built the paddle blank with multiple laminations (Aspen, Cedar,
> Redwood, and a tiny amount of Walnut), and I'm not too surprised that I
> built a brick. Realizing that ahead of time, I drilled some holes in the
> center lamination to lighten it a bit. It appears I should have been more
> aggressive with the drill. Now I'm considering some after-the-fact boring
> to bring the weight down some. I'm thinking about drilling some holes up
> the edge of the blades across the width of the paddle (from edge-to-edge
> perpendicular to the centerline) and using bungs to cap the holes. I would
> appreciate any comments on this approach. Even if it doesn't lighten the
> paddle too much, it will look interesting.

> Thanks,

> Ross

> (I'm taking pictures, so I'll post the page when it's ready)

Ross,

My 100% red cedar one seems quite light. That is after I thinned the blades down quite a bit. The shaft on mine quickly tapers down to the thickness of the blades, just a few inches after the blade starts. I originally had a taper from the shaft to the blade tip. It was very heavy then, but once I thinned it down it became a pleasure to paddle with. My paddle is solid with no holes in it anywhere. It is made of three laminations (one 2x2 and two 1x2s) of red cedar, glued together with epoxy. The red cedar has adequate strength with this setup, but has a nice flex to it also.

Mike