No reason except I’m finishing one and starting another.
All I know is that my buddy’s broke right near the middle of the loom… broke in half. I haven’t broken one yet. I’ve dinged up the ends quite a bit. Just sanded 'em out.
It might be down to the grain structure of each individual piece of wood, but I suspect most will break somewhere in the loom.
That’s what I would expect. I think you would almost need to use one as a pry bar to break it.
The shoulder where the blade transitions into the loom. If you over work that area you begin to weaken it. Thats where the energy from the longer and larger blades go and it is the smallest part of the paddle. Grain and knots will help play a role as well.
My initial guess was the tip, since it’s so much thinner.
Now for a question. If one breaks at the loom, can you use a good wood glue to reattach it?
Only breaks I have ever seen are in the loom. But agree with above, the specifics of the wood can make a diff in where.
The paddler.
Rookie, as a long time sort of carpenter and fix it guy, a repair at that point would be a waste of time.
However, it might be repaired with with a fowl or 2 , and/or a layer of glass.
For that much trouble, I’d make a new one.
@Rookie said:
Now for a question. If one breaks at the loom, can you use a good wood glue to reattach it?
YES… of course you could just glue it…and make a paddle with another weak joint. I would say it depends a lot on how it broke and the species of wood.
If it broke at all it wasn’t built that well or got into a very bad situation. You could add a ferrule at the break if it wasn’t a long spike, green stick fracture, etc. Personally I’d likely trash it or take the saw and split it lengthwise and add a strip of something stronger, re-laminate and re- dimension it. .
Thanks. I’d be heartbroken if my Lumpy broke in half, which I don’t think it will given Bill’s careful selection of WRC and artistry. Sure wish he hadn’t closed up shop.
What was the paddler doing when it broke?
The one I saw break was being used in a fully extended position in shallower water. Bigger guy showing and he didn’t pull out early enough when it found a rock at the far end.
Not sure it matters though. Not an everyday event but if you poke around you can find stories about every kind of paddle breaking sometime… They are tools, they take a lot of work and stuff happens to them, It is why I carry very light spares.
Hey Rookie, My Lumpy paddles are going strong. I think they’ll do fine because of the way the grain is oriented and Bill didn’t use wood with knots in it.
I often use my GP as a yoke to carry gear from my boat to campsite. I’m a big guy though, and it’s sized appropriately. I think I may have mentioned it before, but if I ever encountered an angry bear I think the GP would be a very useful tool indeed. 
It all boils down to three things, the grain of the wood, the quality of the wood and the shape of the paddle.
If the wood has grain runout - particularly in the loom - it’s likely to break. Ideally, the grain should run straight and continuously from one tip to the other.
If the wood has knots or pitch pockets, those are common failure points.
Another common problem I see with DIY paddles is people making the blades too thin and creating an abrupt transition in the shoulder area where the blades meet the loom. Too-thin blades tend to break either in the middle or at the shoulder where the thickness changes suddenly.
FWIW, I’ve never broken one of my own paddles and nobody who I’ve made a paddle for has ever broken one. The bottom line is that if you choose your wood carefully and you taper the blades evenly from shoulder to tip, you don’t have to worry about breakage. That doesn’t mean that it can’t break, just that it would take pretty extreme circumstances.
I also leave my blades a little thicker than I did originally. I used to try to get them as thin as possible but it makes them more susceptible to damage.
Using laminated wood strengthens the paddle, also changes the flex (stiffer) without affecting the weight. Mine has 5 horizontal layers of WRC. The maker also did them in 3 laminations and in 5 vertical laminations – the latter created an even stiffer paddle, according to him.
@willowleaf said:
Using laminated wood strengthens the paddle, also changes the flex (stiffer) without affecting the weight. Mine has 5 horizontal layers of WRC. The maker also did them in 3 laminations and in 5 vertical laminations – the latter created an even stiffer paddle, according to him.
Put a layer of glass and epoxy on the paddle with reinforcing on the tip and end of the loom. Then varnish. Just like a stripper boat.
@kfbrady said:
It might be down to the grain structure of each individual piece of wood, but I suspect most will break somewhere in the loom.
Unless you use it as a chisel or for poking at alligators…then the tip is the weak point.
@Rookie said:
My initial guess was the tip, since it’s so much thinner.
You’re right in that the weak point depends on the loads applied to the paddle.
Now for a question. If one breaks at the loom, can you use a good wood glue to reattach it?
I shortened a wood canoe paddle by cutting out a four inch section of the shaft, drilling holes in the exposed ends, and glueing in sections of hardwood dowel.