The Elusive Carbon Beavertail

[Glenn MacGrady]

The only comments I've heard about Onno for the past couple years have been from people who have sent him money and never received a product; which is too bad as he turned out some nice things and seemed to have a real passion for it.

Alan

The kayakers at paddling.com would know more about Onno. In this thread on that site, Patrick said this in February 2014:

"YES !!! I can replicate your favorite paddle in an ultra light construction. Can be foam or balsa core then reinforced with carbon, glass or a blend of the two in order to achieve the feel you want. No worries to tweak the shape based on your input to pull out desired characteristics or super reinforce layup for rock, coral, oyster bashing durability.

"FWIW .... Coming this spring, i will also have an elegant, adjustable length, single blade "bloated pear" shaft available with two different grips. .... Right now, along with my own profiles, I can put any blade on an adjustable ( round ) shaft with a palm grip but the new "pear" ones will be so much more appreciated by finesse paddlers..

"Each blade and shaft layup will be custom tailored to your intended use and expectations."

An adjustable shaft length carbon canoe paddle is a neat idea. I believe Patrick also communicated his intent to build such a paddle to me once by email. He still has a website, which has an email address and phone number. Can't hurt to call if one is interested.

Alan, you make molds for carbon things. Would it be that hard to make a mold of a paddle? I can understand that a commercial paddle builder, such as Zaveral or GRE, may not want to devote the time to making a one-off beavertail mold for one paddle sale, but maybe they would make the carbon paddle if the prospective buyer made a fiberglass mold and sent it to them.

 

[Alan Gage]

There was a recent thread on Pnet about Onno a couple weeks ago but it seems to be gone now. Sounds like multiple people have been waiting for over a year after sending their money. Patrick won't answer or return their calls/e-mails. In the meantime the website has been updated and other people have placed orders, who have also not received a product. Sounds bad.

Building a mold is hard, at least for me. I've successfully made a couple seat molds and have scrapped more unsuccessful molds. Once you have a mold I think turning out the final product would be easier than the making of the mold itself. If you have the time and skill to build a mold you might as well keep going and turn out the finished product.

Most of the time, for my uses, I find making a mold isn't worth the time and hassle. For one-off projects it's usually easier to use an existing part as the mold or make a lightweight core (foam/cedar) and cover it with carbon or whatever fabric you choose. You don't get the nice finish right out of the mold and it takes times to add fill coats and sand but still usually faster and easier than building a mold for something you only plan to make one or two of.

If I wanted to make a lightweight paddle, and I probably will someday, I'd either carve it out of foam or cedar (depending on how strong/light I wanted it to be) and then cover it with carbon fiber. It won't be as pretty or light as a production paddle but is probably about as good as us backyard DIYers can expect.

Every time I think about making my own composite paddle I think about how long it will take, look at the material costs, what I think my end product will weigh, and decide that the ZAVs maybe aren't quite so expensive afterall, especially on the used market.

Alan

 

[frozentripper]

Alan,

If I wanted to make a lightweight paddle, and I probably will someday, I'd either carve it out of foam or cedar (depending on how strong/light I wanted it to be) and then cover it with carbon fiber.

I found a really light board of red cedar at a Home Depot several years ago... it had only 4-5 widely-spaced growth rings in it so from a fast-growing tree (the boards with high numbers of narrowly-spaced growth rings OTOH were heavier). I carved a paddle out of it, blade shape halfway between beavertail and ottertail, and by the time I had the blade thinned down enough so it would slice easily through the water like it should, it felt so light and flimsy one strong stroke would probably snap it.

Still... a nice-looking paddle so I covered it in 6 oz glass. Learned the hard way to glass both sides of the blade at the same time since it was thin enough to warp easily after glassing one side only. It's lighter than similar hardwood paddles and pitch strokes are a pleasure... I'm still not sure how much of a difference it makes in the long run, since it most likely still isn't the most durable and any hard knocks will dent the glass to create a lighter-colored bruise.

Zaveral says there is a foam core inside their paddle blades so it might be possible to combine some kind of light wood and foam core blade to be covered with carbon. The back-and-forth swing momentum in the blade is probably key since this is where the paddle needs to be lightest and a heavy-ended paddle won't feel good... (I don't want the paddle feeling heavy like there's a piece of lead at the end of it).

All flatwater paddle blades have a foam core...

http://www.zre.com/flatwater-paddles/



I have some doubts that a beavertail or an ottertail made in foam and carbon can be made thin enough to slice easily through the water on the return stroke but the fiberglassed cedar is an indication that it might be possible.

Anyway, this might be something to try, I just have to get the time and materials together whenever that might be.

In the meantime, a neighbor is renovating and has thrown out some mystery wood, a nice yellow color when wet, light and resilient, not brittle on the bend test. I just have to find some nice matching wood color to laminate it with and cost with leftover materials will be $0.00... the carbon with foam core OTOH, will cost and results will be uncertain, esp since there don't seem to be beavertails or ottertails in carbon on the market anywhere... so my gut tells me that someone has already tried this and the product wasn't good enough, at least not good enough to sell. Speculation only, maybe someone has actually tried it, fuzzy memory in a few remaining memory cells seem to be telling me someone has. Ah well, it's lunch time.