Bill, Sounds like a truly brilliant solution!! Have any pictures?

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