: I'm fond of polyurethane glue for laminating paddle blanks. It's
: completely waterproof and very strong, but it requires tight
: joints and very firm clamping. If you decide to go the epoxy
: route, use wood flour to thicken it, as silica will ruin the
: edges on your tools.

: As for making tight joints, as long as you have a good quality,
: sharp blade in your table saw and you make clean cuts, it
: shouldn't take more than a few fine-cut strokes with a SHARP
: plane to clean them up for gluing.

Polyurethane glue requires perfect mating surfaces to develop its full strength. If it foams it will fill voids, but the foam has no strength. In testing by Fine Woodworking PVA glue like Titebond III had the best gap-filling properties and lost no strength to any other glues. I can't remember exactly, but I'm quite sure that it came out ahead of epoxy, although as many people have noted in the past the way they used the epoxy was different from the way most people on the forum here use it. Here is an article about polyurethane glues that you may find interesting: http://www.popularwoodworking.com/article/The_Truth_About_Polyurethane_Glue/

Why is this important?

If you have a well-tuned table saw and a sharp blade, you will have little to no saw marks, and can just glue it up if you have the right glue because the tiny saw marks will be insignificant. If you want to be sure you have the strongest bond with polyurethane you'll need to plane off the saw marks. If you have a thickness planer, just run 'r through and you're set. No hand plane. Using a hand plane can be a problem because it assumes the ability to create a very sharp edge, proper plane tuning and in fact even owning the right type of plane, a way to secure the workpiece, and a really good feel for keeping the plane flat so you don't plane a taper. Those are a lot of ifs, and a lot of people spend a long time learning how to do those things. If you want to start learning with this project, cool. Read up on how to use a plane for this task, and read up on sharpening, and go to work. It's the only way to learn. If you want to make paddle blanks, build some pretty good paddles, and start paddling, go with PVA glue and just a table saw.

m