White Water - Padauk and Ash

Hey Everyone,

Blank

I have been working on my my first laminated paddle. This is the first part of the post, because its seems to be taking me forever. I picked up some a strip of nice Padauk  and a some Ash (Heavy woods) . I combined the wood using some marine grade glue and clamped it for 24 hrs and the added on the next layer and repeated.

Planned Blade

I wanted to try a new type of paddle, something completely different from what i have done. I went with a whitewater paddle, because there was tons of wood to work with width wise.

Cutting the inside of the inside of the T shaped grip was very hard to do on the bandsaw (whole T grip styles a lot of work) . I have been touching it up with the rasp trying to get rid of the blade marks, its coming along slowly but surely.

VERY Rough Grip

Ash is a very grainy wood to work with not as enjoyable as Walnut or other woods. I found that the Padauk is same feel as the Walnut when carving it. The shaft Ash piece was 2 inches by 2 inches so  getting it down to a size i am happy with, while keeping the weight down and strength up is an ongoing challenge.

Semi Shaped grip

The other thing to note if you decided to work with Padauk is that its very sensitive to UV rays. UV rays will turn it a warm brown, unless finished with a UV ray inhibiting finish. We will get to this later on though when i get there. 

All and all i think the paddles slowly coming together nicely but its taking a bit longer then the previous ones because i find myself becoming a bit more of a perfectionist. Shafts shaped and rounded, blades planned down, grips roughed in and finish is picked out.

Part 2 of this post is now available