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

: shawn well Shawn

I laid up a shaft yesterday of mahogany trim ,1/2" radius 11/16" x 8' and feathered it . ended up 1 3/8" square with a 1" hole then it struck me that I could have removed material from one edge on each strip then and arrange the the strips for an oval shaft . so I cut 4 2ft lenghts of some finger jointed pine that I only had 1 length of the same dimensions as the mahogany and set the fence on the saw at 9/16" and removed material from each piece on one edge, cut a piece of 6 oz cloth 6" wide and soaked it with an ounce of resin and fast hardener . I then wrapped it around the innertube and 1/2" pipe and assembled the wood pieces around it wrapped it tightly with vinyl tape (hose clamps would be the ticket here) then inflated the tube ,an hour in the sun and I was able to deinflate and remove the tube and pipe and untape the sample and cut some samples and scan them and upload the jpeg to my webspace directory, gotta update my page someday.( I have finnished the canoe and built one 8 ft x 13.5" s&g guillemont that my 5 yr old nephew and 8 yr old niece just have a riot with and helped my one brother build his s&g guillemot ,which is being test paddled this weekend by my youngest brother and his wife that already have the 8 ft version that the kids have) I have no trouble getting rid of paddles. I still wan,t to try the birdsmouth method so I can use a smaller percentage of that purpleheart (geez is it heavy)I bought a few days ago maybe the two wider strips to get some extra stiffness . I also like Nick's idea (if I ever run across some carbon fiber) the composite extends into the birdsmouth past the adjoining strip's layer. I should probably get my hands on some 2.3 oz cloth and go with 2 or three layers in one wrap.

Any way there was some bulging on the longer sides as you can see in the scan, the paddle in the foreground is the last paddle I have built. red and white cedar the blades are kind of heavy as the cedar is only 1/16" thick but the backsides are mahogany plywood with a glass cloth filling. my next blade layup will have a cedar strip backing running lengh wise with a fiberglass cloth sheet in the center , see if I can get the wieght down Enough babbbbbbling for now.

Later Bill