C-Forum

I'm building a new wood paddle but would like to make the to out of something more durable. I've tried tips made from epoxy resin but they just didn't hold up. What do paddle companies use to make reinforced tips on their wood paddles? Is there some you're of plastic resin I should try?

This worked for me:

- soak Dynel cord with epoxy resin
- use stretch wrap to hold it on the blade until it cures
- grind/sand to the same thickness as the blade
- reinforce the faces of the (wood) blade with cloth & resin, overlapping the Dynel
- grind/sand, coat with spar varnish for UV protection

To prep the cord I laid it on newspaper and brushed on the resin. This was a miscalculation on my part, because it took way more resin than I anticipated to get a thorough soak. I eventually got the cord soaked, but this was not the easy way. Next time I will put the cord in a plastic cup and pour resin over it.

I have seen aluminum tips, dynel tips, and phenolic tips.

Thanks for the tips! (Pun definitely intended).

Titanium would be a fancy, but well-working alternative, too. I've seen some Carbon paddles reinforced with it. Lightweight as Aluminum, but resistant as steel and its resilience actually dampens shock better than aluminum which in some cases can lead to the alum tips loosening quickly after multiple impacts if they're not worked into the blade construction well.

I found that a hole pattern drilled into the metal works well to anchor it into the blade layup, even better if you saw the outer row of holes open - like a puzzle, if you know what I mean... saves some weight too, Alum is lightweight but not -that- lightweight ;D.

Glue it in with a filler in the resin, maybe a mixture of medium density filler and carbon fibre, to give it more grip ;D

If you're looking for tips on "beautiful" and not "abuse" kind of paddles, maybe this is too much.. but it should hold up well in the others. Oh, I found laying this all up with GFlex to work better, because it takes away impact forces due to it's flexibility, imagine it a little bit like a very hard rubber ;D

Cheers,

Jan

ps. post pics when you're done!

If anyone is interested, I still have some tips left over from when I was building my own paddles. I'm pretty sure that I've got them both in 2024 aluminum and 0.040' or 0.050" (404) stainless steel. The tabs are there to make locating them easier.

Hmmm. I like those tabs. Good idea, Bob. They would be very useful when dealing with rafts.

Those look great, I'd jump right on it ;D