Granted I am no expert, but when I made my paddle I followed along with Johnson's video. I used a jack plane (Stanley No. 5) at the start to shape the blades, then cut the general shape of the loom and the shoulders with a hand held jigsaw, and then finished everything up using a combination of a standard angle block plane (No. 9 1/2), spokeshave, the ROS (random orbital sander), then hand sanding and filing. And yeah, it took quite a few hours to shape everything by hand.

: I used a jigsaw to rough out the shape of the loom, shoulders, and
: edges of the blades. As for the paddle faces, I just used a good
: sized block plane. Must've taken me four to six hours to get
: them knocked down.

: Might be just me, but I prefer using the block plane. I can't wait
: to get my hands on a good drawknife or spoke shave for the loom.
: It's a quite a bit slower using the hand tools, but it's easier
: to get precise. Gives me time to look things over and make sure
: I'm doing them right. I might be getting nostalgic, but it
: *feels* better, too.

: -- Noel