Kayak Paddle Questions

Post questions & answers about; paddle selection, building and maintenance; paddling techniques; boat transportation, storage & maintenance.
Post Reply
User avatar
Bryan Hansel
Posts: 678
Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
Contact:

Kayak Paddle Questions

Post by Bryan Hansel »

I'm building a euro kayak paddle. The paddle is going to be made of laminations of two pieces of 1/2" western red cedar and one piece of 1/4" ash up the center. The blades will be carbon fiber. Cool, right?

Now the hard part. I'm building a 60 degree feather in the shaft, but I'm trying to do it by twisting the paddle shaft with a jig. Picture of jig below. The problem is that it's not very easy to introduce a twist into this. I'm able to get the cedar in and twist, but doing it with the ash is near impossible. Any ideas, short of steaming to make this work?

Image
sedges
Posts: 325
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:37 pm
Location: georgia

thinner laminates

Post by sedges »

I would suggest that all pieces in the lamination be 1/4 inch thickness. So you would have 4 1/4 inch cedar pieces and 1 1/4 inch ash piece.

Make sure you get all your twist in the center third of the shaft. There should be no twist at or beyond where you will grip the shaft.

Most of the paddles I've seen have the hardwood on the outside and the soft, light wood inside. Your shaft may be more flexible.

Have you considered a scarf joint in the middle instead of the twist?
Snowman
Posts: 233
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:21 pm
Location: Gatineau, QC

Post by Snowman »

Bryan,

An interesting goal and approach. Can you describe the method you are attemting to accomplish this with? Am I correct in assuming that once you have your forms shown in your jig axially positioned (at each respective station), you try to progressively rotate each form successively as you move along the shaft length, and then secure each one in the predetermined location? Is this the method you have tried and seem to have trouble with? I do not have exerience with rotationally deforming other than the strips near the turn of the bilge, near the stems (I have not tried steaming for rotationally deforming either).

Let us know more and how you make out!


Snowman
Snowman back East
User avatar
Bryan Hansel
Posts: 678
Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
Contact:

Post by Bryan Hansel »

Going with 1/4 inch strips instead of the 1/2 is a good idea. I'm going to give that a shot.

I thought about a scarf joint ala The Strip-Built Sea Kayak, but I don't have a tablesaw to cut the scarf, so I thought it might be fun to build a jig to see if I could do a twist. It will be interesting to see how stiff the paddle is. I have two euro paddles now: One has a carbon fiber shaft and small blades, but isn't very stiff. The other has a fiberglass shaft and is super stiff with very big blades. I'm hoping for slightly more flex than the glass shafted paddle with a larger blade tan the carbon fiber shafted one.

The method... I built the jig and ran a string line down the center of each form to make sure everything rotated around the center of the string. Once everything is lined up, I slide the shaft down the holes in each form. After the first three forms, I twist the boards until they are at the 60 degree angle to slide into the next form. Then with a hammer, I've tapped them to the next form and then repeated. The twist occurs between the third and forth form, which are about 18" apart. The twist ends about 3 to 4" away from my typical hand placement on the shaft.

I'm going to work on the paddle a little more today using the 1/4" suggestion. If that doesn't work, I'll try an idea I got from, Snowman, release three of the forms and then put the forms on and twist them into position and screw them back in place.

Thanks for the help!
User avatar
pawistik
Posts: 323
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:20 pm
Location: Saskatoon, SK

Post by pawistik »

Regarding stiffness, I would think that the tension in the twisted & glued laminations would increase the stiffness of the shaft. It is my understanding that any laminated shaft would be stiffer than a non-laminated shaft of the same wood with the same overall dimensions. Add the twist so that the shaft has built-in opposing tensions and the laminations act as opposing compressed springs resisting flex. That's my theory anyway.

It seems to me that putting the shaft through some of the forms, then using the remaining forms as levers to aid in twisting the shaft into position as Snowman describes would be the easier way to go.

Cheers,
Bryan
DrPepper
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:20 pm

Post by DrPepper »

The twist is definately an interesting approach. If the ash still doesn't twist you could plane it down to two 1/8" pieces. Rounding the shaft with a twist is going to take some skill. You won't be able to just take a big jack plane and knock off the corners. You will have to use a spoke shave and twist with the shaft.

Have you considered making a jig for cutting a scarf with a circular saw? Probably much simpler than the twisting jig and no need for alignment with a string.
User avatar
Bryan Hansel
Posts: 678
Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
Contact:

Post by Bryan Hansel »

For stiffness, I'd agree with you, Bryan. My laminated WRC/Ash greenland paddle is much stiffer than my old WRC greenland paddle, which broke.

It turns out that Snowman had it right! I was able to get the shaft through three of the forms with the glue that was oozing out of the side of the shaft acting as a lubricant, but I couldn't introduce a twist by hand to get it past the fourth form. I anticipated this and had premarked the forms locations to put them back into place after unscrewing them.

I quickly unscrewed the forms, slid the shaft to match up the halfway mark on the shaft with that on the form, then I hammered the remaining forms over the shaft and them used the forms to twist the shaft into the 60 feather. Screwed the forms in one at a time. It worked like a charm.

I ended up just using the two 1/2" cedar pieces and the 1/4" ash.
Now getting the forms off may be more tricky. I used masking tape to protect the forms from glueing to the shaft, but I used PU glue and the glue has foamed up all over the place.

I think Dr.P is right about the skill required to round the shaft, and now that it has been twisted, I wish I would have marked out the lines required before I twisted the shaft, because it would have been slightly easier than what will be required now. And a circular saw scarfing jig would have probably been easy, but this, I hope, is going to be a pretty cool paddle.

BTW, it's snowing out here. Ah...Winter.

This is a picture of the form with the shaft in place.

Image
User avatar
Bryan Hansel
Posts: 678
Joined: Fri May 14, 2004 6:36 pm
Location: Grand Marais, MN
Contact:

Post by Bryan Hansel »

New Picture of the shaft off of the forms:

Image
Snowman
Posts: 233
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:21 pm
Location: Gatineau, QC

Post by Snowman »

Bryan,

Looks like it worked out pretty well - you are going to have a very cool paddle. Make sure you keep us up to date with the progress, final product and paddle characteristics. I would like to see the paddle once shape the shaft and craft the blade.


Snowman
Snowman back East
Post Reply