: 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.

If you glue on hardwood tips with thickened epoxy, don't clamp the joint tight, just enough pressure to insure that the epoxy makes good contact. The extra thickness of the epoxy will allow both for the wood to change shape, grain's run opposite directions, and to resist shock loads.

Bill H.