Just weighed all the components(wood blanks) for the new GP. 13 lbs! My estimate for the finished paddle is 4-5 lbs. Is that too much for a working paddle?
My first GP is 3 lbs and sea-tec’s is 2.
My euro is one lb.
How
did You come up with the estimated weight?
Just make it…then weigh it. no need to estimate anything
anything 3 pounds or less seems OK to me…perfect balance is much more important than actual weight.
Best Wishes and just start making it
Roy
Roy, that was the last thing I said
to my wife after looking it over one more time. Probably would never use the wood for anything else.
If it is too heavy, it goes on the wall. It will be pretty.
Your euro is one lb?
That’s about 4 oz lighter than my Onno full carbon full tour.
Preference
I like 'em 32 oz. or lighter (assuming wood is of quality to yield decent strength/durability with plain WRC). A few onces more isn’t a deal breaker. 38-40oz would be, except maybe for a bomber armored laminate and/or take apart that’s worth the weight (and I’d consider a foam core/fiber reinforced construction to shave some). 48oz? - NFW.
Paddle Weight
My Don Beale paddle weighs 29 oz. 4-5 lbs would be ridiculous IMHO
I agree with the above posts
A typical 84"-90" GP should be under 32 ounces, probably more like 26-30. A three pound or heavier paddle is a real clunker and nothing that I would ever want to use.
A typical cedar paddle blank (8’ 2x4) can easily weigh 5 pounds or more, especially if the wood is damp. The final paddle will still weigh 2 pounds or less, so you can figure that your finished paddle will weigh 30-40% of the weight of the blank.
I’m looking at 3.6 lbs.
I sanded on the two-piece GP I’ve been building this weekend. And sanded…etc, until it it starting to look pretty much like a GP. I’ve been modeling it on my one-piece, cedar GP that I am pretty happy with, and the new paddle is approaching the shape of the one-piece paddle. But it is heavy as a brick.
I was told cedar wouldn’t last with a ferrule, so this new paddle has a loom of solid ash. I used stainless ferrules because they are shorter than CF ferrules and I didn’t want the joint of the wood and ferrule to be right under my hands. There’s a .75" strip of ash running through the center of the whole paddle. Moving away from the loom past the shoulders, the blades transition to cedar, except for that center strip.
I think I need to take another pound off this paddle or throw it away. I’m not going to take much weight out of the cedar, so I will concentrate on making the blade thinner. Any recommendations on minimum blade thickness will be appreciated.
Current dimensions are:
length 91"
thickness of loom at shoulders 1.25"
thickness halfway to tip .75"
thicness 3" from tip .375
How thin?
~~Chip
It’s not the dimensions…
… it’s the Ash and SS!
yow!
Paddle weight matters a lot to my paddling happiness. The GP they made for me at Novorca weighs 27 or 28 ounces. I can’t remember if it’s cedar or spruce; whatever it is, it’s light and paddles nicely. I hated using a GP the first few times I tried them, but now I think that’s because they were heavy.