Watched “How it’s Made” on the TV this morning. They did a story on making offset, carbon fiber bar H2O paddles with plastic blades. Interesting process. Lots of forming, glueing , cutting, etc. One point was that it can cost up to $100,000 to make the form, or “die”, for the injection molded blade. Guess they’d have to sell a lot of those to pay off.
Yes, tooling is expensive. That’s why a blade that’s made with pennies worth of plastic ends up on a $50 paddle. The tooling has to be paid for somehow.
Same for plastic kayaks. The moulds cost a fortune.
Make em out of wood.
YOu can glue up some laminated pieces for a blank.