Kyle,

I've built a couple of paddles with a combination of wood, carbon fiber, and foam. Some of the ingredients were from Nick Schade, Duane Strosaker, and Shawn Baker. I added a few ideas and some spices and ended up with one great paddle. It originally weighed 25 ounces and the swing weight feels very low. Here are some links:

http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Building/index.cgi/read/158478 A previous post

http://www.flickr.com/photos/84917002@N00/ A few pictures of my paddle

http://www.geocities.com/shawnkayak/paddle/birdshaft.html Bird's mouth shaft

http://www.rollordrown.com/kayak/paddle.html Lay-up for the power face, etc.

The shape of the blades is from the offsets in Nick's book.

I highly recommend:
1. An egg-shaped shaft instead of oval
2. A light weight paddle
3. An unfeathered paddle
4. Foam-cored blades (if you use composites)

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Pedro Almeida