: Good afternoon,

: Ive roughly carved out a few paddle out of cheap wood just to get
: the "Shape of things" as you will.

: I watched matt johnsons vidio of the chuck Holst design. my
: question is are any of you doing a simpler design for the cross
: section??

: the holst layout has more measurements than the deck at My house
: its also a pain to get all the lines just right if in fact you
: dont do your planing and cutout just right as you lose your
: plumb points.

: your thoughts please simple straight diamond cross section???

: may thanks
: "John"

John,
When you ask about a simpler design, are you referring to the design final shaping & profile of the finished paddle, or are you thinking more about the process of getting to the finished product? There are things you can do to the process, but far less you can change and still end up with a decent paddle.
I'd encourage you to think twice about the diamond cross sections. Water doesn't particularly like to flow past/around sharp corners. It prefers smooth rounded surfaces. Here's a link to a page of Greenland paddles surveyed by Gail Ferris - http://www.guillemot-kayaks.com/Building/GailPaddles/GreenlandPaddles.html . Take a look at the shapes of the paddles on this page. There is one in the group that has a diamond-ish cross section, but that only starts more than halfway up the blade. All of the paddles have a lenticular cross-section. That is what you're looking for in shaping your paddle blades. Take a look at other Greenland paddles. If you can find someone who has a Beale paddle, look at how Don shapes them - he knows what he is doing bealepaddles.com. There are lots of approaches that can get you to that shape, Holst's instructions are just one way to do it.

-John D.