: Hi Pete,

: Inspired by ZuZu?!

: That sounds pretty straightforward. Having a central foam mandrel or
: something would make aligning the wood strips easier. However, I need to
: think of a good way to keep the composite on the mandrel until I get the
: strips around it.

: Thoughts?

: Shawn

Hi Shawn a few months ago I built a hollow cedar shaft paddle with a 3/4" dia hole in the center and fiberglassed the inside of the shaft with 6 oz cloth the shaft came out nice and light with lots of flex and so far bulletproof axcept that the shaft gets dinged easily. But your idea for the oval shaft seems as if it would work out great for me. I used a 10' length of 1/2" id copper pipe and cut a bicycle innertube about 6" from the valve and clamped the tube to the pipe at one end then stretched the rest of it down the pipe about 8' then clamped it in position there . I then wound epoxy soaked bias cut cloth around the innertube after of course coating it first with release agent (car polish), then assembled my four piece square shaft around it and clamped it in several places with a few wraps of vinyl eletricians tape then inflated the tube untill the joints opened up slightly and the epoxy began oozing out then after about ten minutes release the pressure slightly and wrapped the entire length with tape and increase the pressure a small amount. check your shaft for straigtness , and the air pressure from time to time. This also saved me from having to epoxy coat my mating wood surfaces as the excess resin from the cloth is squeezed out through the joints. the next day I unclamped the tube and pulled the copper pipe out then just pulled on the innertube and it released itself and pulled out. any innertube extending outside the shaft will bulge like crazy you can wrap it with tape or just slide some pvc water pipe over the exposed tube. the only reason I used the 1/2" copper is that is what was lying around you could use just about anything or possibly stretch the tube between two "C" clamps on a 2x4 without anything in the center . Enough of the poor mans vacuum bagging for now

Later Bill