Call it a theme. Maybe. Exasperation? Maybe. Encouraging change? Also maybe.
But…at the end of the day it might just be me. So let’s call it personal preference, which is still kind of the point. That point being that just about any kind of wood can work for a paddle and its parts. The image above shows a pine paddle that originated from a lumberyard 2×4. That board caught my eye because I could see a birdseye texture on the surface as the board sat there in the pile calling my name. So I bought it, and sliced it up into a few pairs of blades all of which show off what I think is just a stunning texture, one that only Mother Nature could cook up, admittedly from stress, most likely beetle infestation. Possibly fire. Or drought. Sorry about that string of comma separated dependent clauses. It couldn’t be helped.
Birdseye pine as a paddle blade. Guess what? The paddle works just fine. Please remember that a paddle you purchase in a store is constrained by issues that the DIY paddle builder can ignore. I could buy a single 2×4, after sorting through a pile of 2x4s. Paddle companies are manufacturers. They buy wood by the truckload. They have sorters that go through and exclude exceptions, sending the straight and true pieces on to the next step. Funky pieces hit the firewood bin.
This is not really a bad thing, sorting and selection are the start of a high volume automated process that allows a paddle manufacturer to make tons of paddles in one fell swoop. By and large it works pretty well, turning out consistent paddles with a repeatable look, fell, and dimension. But it is not a custom process that allows for exceptions to be turned into a one-off, bespoke, custom paddle.
That’s where you, dear reader, step into the lumberyard and let all those non-conforming pieces catch your eye. After the eye comes the hand and then the imagination.
And that’s how a ‘one of a kind’ paddle is created by a DIY builder.
Try it. You just might like it.
The second paddle is cedar with a cedar blade featuring a book-matched (aka butterfly) knothole that I filled with ‘green envy’ epoxy.
Be a builder. Let your eye be the artist and designer. Fiberglass and epoxy are the engineering miracle workers that turn seemingly fragile pieces of nature’s art into strong, stiff, and rock-proof paddle parts.
Like peanut butter and chocolate, art and engineering go great together!
Paddle Books 