I want to shorten my 240 Kayakstore paddle to a 230 or 225. Is that possible?
haet gun
ZRE has an article on their webstie on shortening carbon paddles which gives some good advice. One of their tips is that you can loosen the blade from the shaft by using a heat gun. Personally, I have never tried this but have used the scoring method suggested by Eric with no problems.
I think I better find someone to do it.
Whetstone paddles aren’t made any more and I really like the paddle.
Oh, you can do it.
The heating idea is the way I would go. The resin used to glue the blade into the shaft will soften with heat from a heat gun, and maybe even a high-wattage hairdryer. Pad the blade and clamp it securely. Wrap an old bicycle innertube or some other grippy item around the shaft. Carefully heat the throat of the paddle and apply torque. (helps to have a helper). At some point it WILL break free.
Jim
Heat is it
I’ve replaced four Lendal blades back onto two new shafts- not because I was shortening them, but because I broke 'em. The heat gun was the way to go to release the blade from the shaft, just be cautious, which I’m sure you’ll be anyway when dealing with an expensive paddle. I scored the shaft parallel to the shaft with a hacksaw (slowly- you’ll know when you’ve cut through the shaft) where the shaft and the paddle meet,(I was throwing the broken shaft away) then gradually heated the joint and pried gently with a chisel at the score until the bond began to give. Even heating all round the shaft helps. When I was able to begin prying the shaft off the paddle it came right off. I also used epoxy to glue the new shaft back on to the paddle blades, but I also thickened it with colloidal silica (west system) to resolve my concerns of thin epoxy leaving voids in the bond. I use both the repaired paddles for rough surfing and they’re holding up fine. Just do a move at a time and relax- after one you’ll be ready to do a million. Cheers
Soak them carbon fibers, then put
the shaft in the biggest commercial dryer you can find. Will shrink that sucker down.
AHHHH … … not all paddle blades are
bonded to shaft with some quicky adhesive. so heating and pulling twisting in hopes that its gonna just ‘pop off’ could and will possibly just damage the shaft and blade by exceeding the HDT of the shaft and blade resins. So you give up because the blade did not come off but now you have silently weakened the shaft , blade or both.
Not trying to be the profit of doom here but some this information above will not work for every scenario and is risky trying it without knowledge of paddle’s construction.
String, Eric is right about reinforcement being a good idea right there but you are not gonna kill the paddle by working from the middle.
If you are still worried, cut it off on the bonded ferule side then bond ferule back on. You will not have a problem with this.
I don’t think the blade ends of those shafts were reinforced but this is where they should be if the shaft is thin enough to warrant doublers @ the middle.
I have located a guy who did this for
a friend on the same paddle. I’m hoping he has time to do mine. It isn’t even the $$ at risk;I love my paddle.
Pat, would you please refrain from
posting thoughtfully and accurately as if you were responding to my totally off-the-wall heat shrink suggestion? You are giving irrelevancy a good name.
The guy I found wants to do what I
suggested. Cut 3" off and bore another hole.
Freudian Slip…
Hey Pat, did you mean “Prophet of Doom” or did you really mean “Profit from Doom”. 