: It seems this is a never-ending topic, and I'm sure very boring for
: long-time posters. I'm looking for *the peeerffeeeect
: finiiiiiish*! One that has the great hand feel of tung oil, but
: the hardness afforded by epoxy. I've made on paddle that felt
: amazing with just spirit line tung blend, but I chipped it on
: the first trip -_- I also have some west system 105/207.

: I found on the woodenboat forums a suggestion that epoxy as the
: first coat, sanded back down to the wood, and then with an oil
: finish as usual on top would be a great combination of hardness
: and feel. Does anyone have experience with such a technique? The
: idea I guess is to get the epoxy into the grain, but off the
: surface. Would some UV protection for the epoxy be a necessity
: in this case? If so, wouldn't the varnish kind of ruin the
: potential feel of the wood?

: Here's the aforementioned discussion:
: http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?3996-Epoxy-over-oil-based-stains

I'm new to this, too. But I thought I'd share anyway. I used pure tung oil on my cedar paddle, applied with a cotton rag. I sanded between the first two coats then did a couple more coats with 0000 steel wool between them. I've paddled with this paddle about a dozen days- in lakes, saltwater, and one in a pool. (The pool session was hardest on the paddle since I hadn't yet learned a good roll and spent some time scraping the bottom of the pool.) I intend to sand the scrapes and apply a couple more coats of oil.

One thing to remember- don't grab the tip of the paddle. In one class I took from a Greenlander, who made this point early on (because traditional paddles in his family had bone tips, which would break off if grabbed and torqued), a student who had a very nice laminated paddle with hardwood tips (a paddle that he had purchased) broke his paddle when he grabbed the tip out of habit having learned some improper techniques and not yet adjusted to all the new information being imparted. It seems that, over time, tips coated with epoxy and or fiberglass might suffer a similar fate. Maybe not. Just something to keep in mind.