My one piece western redwood cedar kayak paddle is now “finished”. I carved this paddle from a single piece of cedar because I wanted a kayak paddle with some character. I used hand tools except for sanding the finishing coat.
The spoke shave proved to be the best tool for creating the organic shape after using the hand saw to produce the rough outline.
I have always preferred wooden paddles over any plastic or carbon fiber models. They literally feel warmer in the hands and provide far more buoyancy for bracing and long days of paddling.
I love how each paddle blade has a unique wood grain. One end; ordered and linear. The other end chaos.
I used a new epoxy to seal the paddle and it caused some pretty terrible bubbles on the surface once I walked away. The bubbles look soft and “bubbly” but they dried hard as stone and were a pain in the ass to sand down.
In hindsight, I probably should have sealed the paddle first with some kind of prep. I think the trapped moisture tried to make its way out during the cure process. The torch only made the bubbling worse…
Once the sanding was finished…Is it ever really…? I treated the paddle with a few coats of Minwax spray finish. This sealed up any areas where the epoxy hadn’t soaked in or was sanded off.
This paddles works very well. I was quite surprised at the lack if any flutter and at how much power I could transfer to the water. The kayak paddle turned out to be plenty strong and the next version will be the same geometry, but on a diet.
