HEIRLOOM TECHNOLOGY
By Tim Anderson
Instant Paddle
Here’s a better, quicker, inexpensive way to make a paddle.
A paddle can be laborious to make. It can cost a
lot to buy. Here’s a better, quicker, inexpensive way.
The old-time Hawaiians sometimes made paddles
this way, and I’ve seen paddles made the same way
in Nicaragua. I myself have done a lot of paddling
with paddles like this. They work great.
And there’s not much to it. Drill 2 pairs of holes in
a board. Tie loops of string through the holes. Jam a
stick in the loops and go paddling.
Pictured is a Naish carbon stand-up paddle that
retails for $399, next to my “copy” which didn’t cost
anything to make and took an hour or so of work
(Figure A). Here’s how you can make one, too.
»
1. Trace a blade you like.
In the surf industry this process is called R&D,
which stands for “rip off and duplicate.” The shapers
all do it and joke about it with pride. I traced the
blade onto a piece of scrap paper. It happened to
be a map of Burning Man 2008. I folded the paper
over to make sure my blade would be symmetrical,
and cut it out with scissors. I added a bulge at the
top of the blade so the lashing wouldn’t slide off.
My scanner is smaller than the paddle blade,
so I folded the paper into quarters and scanned it.
The blade is 9½" wide and 18" long. The lashing
holes in my blade are 0.372" and are drilled in the
wide part of the blade. Download the template at
makezine.com/21/heirloom, print it out at the
proper scale, and trace it to make your blade.
3. Rip the sticks.
A hockey stick is a perfect shaft for a canoe paddle.
Graft 2 of them together with a scarf joint for a
stand-up paddle. I didn’t have enough hockey sticks
for all these paddles, so I ripped some nice scrap
wood on my table saw (Figure C). Ripping means
cutting along the grain of the wood. It’s one of those
jobs that’s a whole lot easier with power tools. I’ve
done it with a handsaw and it’s a day-eater.
A diameter of 1¼" is about right for a round
softwood stand-up paddle shaft; 1½" is too thick,
and 1" wouldn’t be too thin for your hand but it’s too
flexible for a shaft this long. Measure some paddles
that look and feel good to you to see how thick you
want yours to be. The handle of the Naish is 1. 15"
diameter and is 86" long overall. A rectangular
shaft can be thinner than a round one and have the
same strength. If you want a T-handle on top of your
paddle, feel free to add one, although the old-time
Hawaiians never did.
2. Cut out a blade and drill the holes.
I used a laser cutter to cut blades from 7" thick
Baltic birch plywood that came from a packing crate
for a Contex large-format scanner (Figure B). Use
whatever plywood you have handy.
I lend away a lot of paddles, so I made a dozen while
I was at it. Use whatever tools you have; usually I use
a handsaw and a hand drill. That’s almost as fast as
a laser cutter. A lot faster if you count CAD time.
4. Round the shaft corners.
I usually use an octagon scribe to mark the corners
and shave the shaft with a drawknife, plane, and
spokeshave. That’s fun, and you can hold a conversation while doing it. When I’m in a hurry I use a
router with a quarter-round bit (Figure D). I clamp
the router securely in a work stand.
Choose the radius of the quarter-round bit to suit
yourself. If its radius is half the thickness of your work,
you’ll get a round shaft. When I’m in a hurry is when
I get injured, but today things went smoothly. That’s
not my blood on the work stand. I think it’s paint.
5. Prepare the stick and blade.
So now you’ve got a stick and a blade. Cut the end
of the stick so it tapers down to the end on one side
like a wedge. The handle for this particular paddle is
a broken hockey stick from the rink at Kihei, Maui.
I know from growing up in Minnesota that a hockey
164 Make: Volume 21
