How to build a hollow shaft wood canoe paddle

[Glenn MacGrady]

I mentioned in another thread that I had a wood canoe paddle in the 1980s with a hollow shaft. It was the Chehalis model made by Nimbus in Canada, and it was lost on the Ashuelot River in New Hampshire. I see Nimbus is still around, but they seem to be making only composite kayak paddles now.

A hollow wood shaft makes sense to me for two reasons: It can reduce the overall weight of the paddle or, alternatively, the shaft can be made in a larger diameter without any weight penalty. Experiments have shown that bulkier grips on tools often have a better hand-feel and are more comfortable. If you think a hollow wood shaft has detriments, you can discuss that too.

In any event, I never again encountered a wood canoe paddle on the market with a hollow shaft. However, I just found this video of a guy making one. I have no idea whether his is the method used by Nimbus, but it is clever and the paddle looks darn good.

 

[alsg]

I've been intrigued about making a hollow shaft paddle since stumbling across a blog tutorial years ago. Unlike the above video where the strips are simply edge jointed, the tutorial I saw showed him using the bird's mouth joint, which is a traditional woodworking technique used to make cylindrical wooden objects like masts. It's an inherently stronger and more stable joint than the technique shown in the video because it relies on both glue and a mechanical joint rather than simply edge gluing the strips (which admittedly is pretty strong with modern water proof glues or epoxies). It also makes assembly of the shaft much easier because the mechanical joint can't be assembled incorrectly because the pieces can't slide past each other. He used it to make both regular and bent shaft paddles and paddles with both round shafts and oval shafts.

Anyway, here's the bird's mouth joint hollow paddle tutorial.
http://sawdustfactory.nfshost.com/paddles/

 

[Cruiser]

I've been intrigued about making a hollow shaft paddle since stumbling across a blog tutorial years ago. Unlike the above video where the strips are simply edge jointed, the tutorial I saw showed him using the bird's mouth joint, which is a traditional woodworking technique used to make cylindrical wooden objects like masts. It's an inherently stronger and more stable joint than the technique shown in the video because it relies on both glue and a mechanical joint rather than simply edge gluing the strips (which admittedly is pretty strong with modern water proof glues or epoxies). It also makes assembly of the shaft much easier because the mechanical joint can't be assembled incorrectly because the pieces can't slide past each other. He used it to make both regular and bent shaft paddles and paddles with both round hollow shafts and elliptical hollow shafts.

Anyway, here's the bird's mouth joint hollow paddle tutorial.
http://sawdustfactory.nfshost.com/paddles/

Watched that a while back as well, ordered the router bits to do these, but haven't made the opportunity to make a few yet.

Just in the middle of another set of paddles and now I want to try that, oh well, maybe next time.

Brian

 

[MrPoling]

I had a hollow handle broom once, from a single piece of wood. It was hollowed out by a carpenter bee. I suppose the same technique could be applied to a solid shaft canoe paddle. Probably drilling entrance hole would be enough to entice the bee.