: That scale was more accurate than mine, and the two agreed. I think the
: shoulderless paddles are lighter than the shouldered ones. Also this one
: is 2" shorter than the others.

So, that's it! I thought the paddles were the same except that one of them was 3 oz lighter - my mistake. Anyway, as nice as shoulders are on GP nr 1, who needs them anymore after the tilted stroke has been mastered? A well-shaped loom will be enough, especially if it is just the right thickness for my hand! And nixing the shoulders means nixing that much solid wood. And weight.

: Ive found that cedar is lighter than redwood / basswood combined, or any
: combination of redwood accents. I was suprized at the weight of this one,
: because it has pine blades. I intend to get some longer lengths of pine
: and try a core in all pine. One never knows... And I was quite suprized
: and pleased at how it compared to the carbon paddle. Now if I can just
: duplicate it...

I wonder if the pine you are using is even in the same family of trees as the one we have here in Finland - my experience has been that pine is very heavy, even 50 % heavier than spruce. Anyways, you have so many more species of trees in North America, even the pine family seems to contain at least half a dozen, although they probably are close relatives.

: Also, I'm thinking of experimenting with glassing the inside of the core, and
: thinning down the amount of wood. I imagine a paddle with 3/16" core
: strips, and 1/4" cap strips, would be even lighter - and stronger,as
: the glass would be closer to the outside edge. The trick will be to shape
: it without getting too far into that core strip...

Hmmm... when I read your first account of the hollow core or "truss" my first reaction was "that's great! how simple and elegant" and the second one was "but why does he put the thicker strips front and back, and not top and bottom?".

After all, to get max stiffness and strength one should have the long side of the thicker strip horizontally, so that it resists the bending stresses on the paddle, which are mostly in one plain only. The front and back strips, that run all the way to the tips full width, can be quite thin - they don't really carry much load.

And on the other hand, the cap strips are cut down along the blade tapers, and also their corners along the loom as this is ovalled, while the core strips are hardly cut at all, if they are thin enough to begin with.

Now it seems that you are doing the same thing, having switched the places of the thick resp. thin strips? And gone thinner still, for each strip.

Have you considered making some loom sections (3 feet long) without any blades, for testing with the classic sand bucket method? That would soon settle the question of how thick the strips need to be, and how oval the corners can be before the strength is lost. Weighing them would also give some basic data.

Glassing the inside is an idea that leaves me scrathing my head - I just dont see the point, or how it could be done? If you glass at all, why not just on the outside?

Anyway, I dimly remember an argument about a year back, where the idea of glassing paddle shafts was decidedly bashed, and labelled useless at best. Could have been all hog-wash though.