: It has been a while since I have been to this forum after finishing my
: Shooting Star about a year ago with a lot of your help. I am now building
: a 21' powerboat but while I am waiting for the wood to arrive/dry I
: thought I would make another run at building a paddle.I tried a laminate
: paddle with the face attached to each side of the shaft(like Nick's book
: suggests)but I have a beautiful piece of mahogany from which I would like
: to make each face without splitting them between the spruce shaft. Are
: there plans for such a paddle? Can I just shape(carve?) the faces and then
: epoxy to the shaft? What type of joint can I use between the shaft and
: face(s)to assure the proper strength?
: Thanks for any suggestions.

The way I learned to make paddles back in the eighties, was to just glue
blocks of wood on either side of the ends of your paddle shaft and carve
the blade shape out of that.

I just made a feathered euro paddle for a client with spooned blades with
a red cedar piece inset to the shaft bottom at the blades. On the top you
see the white cedar shaft surrounded by a red cedar apron changing to
white cedar blades. On the power face or bottom you see a rounded thin
wedge of red cedar where the shaft would be, surrounded by white cedar blades.

I mention this because I think it can be a solution to your task.

What I'd suggest is to make your paddle shaft, usually about 1-1/2" X 1-1/4"
the full length of the paddle. Then decide what the final shape of the power
face will be. Cut that shape into the ends out of the 1-1/2" width 1/4" deeper
than the finished blade will be, and glue in a piece of your mahogany. Then
just glue 2 to 3 pieces of mahogany on either side of the shaft to the size of
your blade and curve away.

Lay out guide lines very carefully for yourself so you don't carve away material
you didn't want to remove.

I got impatient carving out the spoon in the power face and pulled out my chain saw
disk for my 4' angle grinder and hogged out material really fast. Then I when to bed
depressed because I thought I had carved too deep. It turned out I hadn't, but it was
mighty close, so be careful. If you carve to far, you'll just have to make it a design
feature and put a veneer whale over the spot.

On the paddle I just finished I used Turk's Head knots for drip rings. They came out quite nice.
I make them each of them from a 28" length of 1/8" black shock cord. The shock cord makes it
quite easy to tie the knot and just pull the loose ends under.

To learn to tie a Turk's Head knot go to: http://www.geocities.com/yosemite/geyser/2198/resources/turkshead.html

Hope this helps.

All the best,
Rob