Yeah, although the way I'm laminating them is eliminating a lot of the scrap material, and setting the thickness guide by the shape of the center core. I'll know more next week, obvoiusly.

I have thought about some sort of a router jig, but I cant quite picture it yet. You'd have to make one jig for each size of blade, and that might be a problem. It's a compound curve, which is difficult to jig. I'm not averse at all to the idea of using electricity to save time, especially for an application like this. Ive always before carved with a plane, but that takes way too long. I'm thinking the drawknife will remove the rest of the bulk in pretty short order, and wilth a little practice I should be able to carve four faces in less than an hour. I kind of like the idea of hand-built custom paddles.

Mark Rogers - is that Superior Paddles? I like some things about them, and not others. He's using more hardwood than I like, which adds significantly to the weight. They are a little stiffer than mine, which I like the flex better but I can see for production / sale that the stiffness is probably more appealing. I'd hate to have people thinking they can use these to pry off rocks with, and break one. And his carbon fiber paddle - unique, and nice, but I like wood. Sure is lightweight though!

His finish is something different, too. Steve said it's some kind of oil, but if that's so it's a high solid content oil - like Watco with more varnish in it, and many coats. I find that hard to believe in production - CPES and matte varnish would give the same effect, and be tougher. But I like the oiled - bare wood feel, and I think most users agree with me. Of course, most of us have no problem slathering smelly oil mixtures on now and then, and that too may not be applicable for production.

Ive a lot to learn, thats for sure, and this may or may not go - but the truss structure, and core jig are unique, and I want to give it a try.

: If you really get into production then you would probably be forced to use an
: angle-grinder, power-planer, and other mechanized wood-eating machinery,
: to reduce your time investment. Mark Rogers is using automation to produce
: his wood paddles, the setup is not cheap.

If I had a CNC table, I could do all sorts of things - sell single peice unfinished blanks cheap for example - and I think there would be a big market for that. Very little work on my part - pick a good chunk of wood and stick it in the nachine. I am not adverse at all, if I get into production, to looking at a buisness loan. But what I'd really like, for right now, is the ability to turn out two, three, or maybe four a week and bring in a side income from it.

: I really enjoy using edge-tools, but I have no pressure on time or producing
: large numbers of paddles.

: Greg Stamer