I have a big paddle trip planned for June and my 11 year old son will be paddling his own kayak. The trip is about 100 miles on the Altamaha River in Central/Southern Georgia. Alex (my son) has been swapping off using one of my Werner carbon paddles that's too long for him (230cm) and a Werner Sprite that's too short (180cm). Since he's a growing boy, I decided not to invest in an expensive commercial paddle when I can build one (or two) for him for very little cash....

Last year, I built three Bird's Mouth shaft canoe paddles for a similar trip using Kurt Maurer's directions and they were extremely light weight (14oz) and performed very well. I've been pondering how to use the same Bird's Mouth shaft technique to make a kayak paddle and Dave Gentry's post last week on the same topic caused me to get moving and build one.

So, here's the plan..... I'm going to build Alex two paddles using the Bird's Mouth shaft method. One will be a shallow angle blade modeled after my Werner Camano and the second will be a high angle blade modeled after my Werner Shuna. "Modeled After" means I traced the outline of my commercial paddle blades and then re-drew the lines about 3/8" inch smaller using the freehand method... Both paddles will be 210cm and the shafts will be 1" x 1 1/4".

The blade construction will be done using Duane Strostaker's plans for building a solid shaft euro paddle with carbon fiber blades. This means that I'll have to plug the ends of the shafts with a wood insert and add some material to the sides to accomodate cutting out the blade curve. I think Dave Gentry is planning a similar approach without the wood plug and I look forward to seeing how it works out....

So, on Saturday I cut the wood for the shafts using strips left over from my last boat project. I used some light cedar and some dark cedar so I can alternate the colors on the shaft. After cutting the shaft stock and using approx 3" lengths of the stock, I assembled a section of shaft using rubber bands to hold together. The purpose was to get the internal measurements to use in cutting an insert (plug) to be used in strengthening the blade end of the shaft.

On Sunday, I assembled the shafts with the wood plugs inside and set them aside for the glue to dry.

Following in the next few posts will be some pics I took of the project so far and I'll add more as I go along. I'll also provide a link to the Photobucket albumn to you can see all of the pics together if you have an interest.

As we stand today, the shafts are fabricated.
To do:
- add additional material on the sides of the shafts
- cut out the shaft for the blades
- make and install the carbon fiber blades
- general finish work
- Use the paddles on a great 7 day trip!

Photobucket albumn link: http://s291.photobucket.com/albums/ll316/beaullieu/BirdsMouth%20Euro%20Paddle/

Bob Beaullieu