Sometimes called "verticle grain"
or “VG” grade.
Wood for GP
All good advice, except for the balsa wood. Balsa is easy to work with, but would break at the first stroke. Cedar can be found at the local store, but you will have to look at a lot of it before you find an acceptable piece.
Some places specialize in quality WRC, but it is a more pricy. I have found suitable cedar at Lowes and Home Depot for around $10, but it takes lots of searching. I recently found some beautiful wood for 2 paddles at a specialty shop for $35 for both.
A much better bet than a 2x12
First off, you shouldn’t have to buy a 2x12 just to get a decent 2x4. Knots aren’t all that common in red cedar and the bigger concerna are grain orientation and straightness. Vertical grain (the end of the board looks like this: ||||||||| ) is superior to flat grain, IMO. The grain needs to runs straight from end to end, but it’s especially critical that there is no grain runout in the loom area. Otherwise, you paddle will have a short life.
If you can’t find a suitable 2x4, look at 4x4s. The symmetric shape doubles your chances of getting the right grain orientation, since you can resaw it in either of two planes and end up with two paddle blanks. Worst case, look at 2x6s. You’ll have some waste, but it’s a lot less than with a 2x12 and a LOT cheaper.
I had to lam up two boards
Oddly, though I live on the West Coast, I had difficulty finding WRC. When I did find it, all I could get was a couple of nice 1"x4"s that were leftovers from a flooring job. So I used Titebond III after much research. Later I had to lam on a thin piece of basswood to the loom, just to get that last 1/4" I needed for my hands. It all worked absolutely great with a 4 coat Tung Oil Finish (Watco) job. And it has absorbed zero water, even where the finish is worn off.
first paddle
first and second paddle: straight grained pine no knots at any decent lumber store. cheap and light enough
On your third, go to a cabinet or specialty lumber yard and spend 30 bucks for really nice straight grained western red cedar. by this time you have invested $60 bucks and have three nice paddles. You have had enough time in between carving to test and see what YOU like in a paddle.
can’t beat it.
buy Brians book.
Paul
Greenland paddle wood
I make and sell Greenland from rare old growth Western Red Cedar. It is one of the lightest and most beautiful woods around at 32 pounds per cubic foot. I have paddled 22 naughtical miles in a day with a WRC Greenland Paddle and still had energy to spare. (I’m 68 years old). I’ve made paddles as light as 23 OZ. but typically they come in around 26 to 30 oz.
As for carbon fibre - cold - very cold, meaning devoid of any warmth and colour.
How does one find your paddles?
I’d like to see what you make. Do you have a website?
Western red cedar
is a very easy wood to work. WRC doesn’t have hard/soft grain patterns like douglas fir so it’s easy to carve, plane and sand. WRC is a rot resistant wood and also toxic. Please read about WRC toxicity and take the appropriate precautions.
Good luck.
One more thing
If you aren’t familiar with using a GP you probably won’t be able to critique the design of the paddle you make. I made a GP from instructions on the Internet. When I took it out for a test paddle I had no idea how the paddle performed not being familiar with how to use a GP.
I was able to paddle with my homemade GP and it was satisfying to have made my own paddle. I’ll have to wait until the next group paddle so my Greenland paddler friends can try and critique my GP.
western red cedar and carbon fiber
apples to cumquats.
WRC is the preferred wood because it is light, reasonably strong (about 80 lb breaking point if you hang from the middle of the loom) and rot resistant. It is a soft wood and easy to carve. I love wood paddles and have a whole bunch of em. I think about 12 or so maybe more.
I have studied many many pictures and articles on paddles and one of the things I saw that was very prevalent was that strength was far more important than weight to someone who was out hunting for their family. The whole weight craze is marketing for the most part and especially the fuzzy math saying something like a 2 4 ounce paddle means 900 lbs less that you picked up in a days paddling. I love that one.
carbon fiber provides that strength without the significant weight penalty that a fir paddle would have and is far stronger than WRC. My partner recently hung from one of our cf paddles and he weighs 210 lbs and while it creaked it did not crack or break. Far more strength than you would expect in the worst of conditions. Unless you were prying 100 pound rocks out of your yard I suppose.
Carbon fiber is simply one of the materials out there that works on a strength to weight ratio. Oh and by the way, wood is carbon. 
A great compromise for strength and stiffness is laminating paddles and Chris Raab from Tuktu paddles is in my opinion a real expert at this as it does involve some wood knowledge as different woods expand and contract differently in water and temperature ranges.
Greenland paddles are very efficient tools. Pine, Spruce, fir, white and red cedar, poplar. pawlata, redwood, and many others are used to make paddles and skin on frame boats. concentrate on making a paddle that is efficient for its uses. Going long distance paddling and want a nice bouyant stroke that snaps back a bit? make it a bit thinner or use a lighter wood. Want one for heavy duty conditions and rocks make yourself a spruce or pine paddle that will be stifferand stronger. want an exercise paddle before racing? make a club
Paul
Laminating is a good option
You can also buy flat grain boards, rip them down the center, turn the pieces 90 degrees and glue them back together to create a vertical grain blank. Just make sure to joint or plane the mating surfaces in order to get a tight joint. You’ll probably need to laminate a thin layer in the middle or to both outside edges to get back to the original width, if you’re making a 3.5" wide paddle.
BTW, Watco is not tung oil, it’s wiping varnish with some oil in it.
Pine’s perfect
Pine is often overlooked and it’s a perfect wood for a GP.
You can buy a knot free 1 x 4 x 7ft at home depot for about $7.
Then laminate another piece of 3/8 pine down the center of both sides to get thickness. It makes a light and strong paddle and you won’t have to make the huge loom for lack of wood strength.
WRC and CF
I do like the CF paddles and CF reinforced with Kevlar is very strong, though not totally “break-proof”. Not sure anything is “break-proof” anyway.
My WRC paddle is extremely light, yet strong. When experienced paddlers pick it up, the first reaction is shock at its low weight. The second reaction is real interest. No, the CF owners would not trade, but they do show real interest and you can see the wheels turning in their heads…;=)
Wood variation
All woods show variation in density between sap wood and heart wood, between old growth and “second” growth, and of course between species.
At the Skinboat School I viewed a section of old growth WRC root. It was as dense as a tropical hardwood-being readied to install as a Masik in a Baidarka. Sort through the WRC in a good lumber yard and you will find considerable differences in the weight of the boards. If they are all reasonably dry, the weight difference will correspond with the density/strength (assuming the grain is straight and vertical).
My preference is to buy a 4 x 4 of WRC or Yellow Cedar with straight grain and a foot or so longer than I want. Align the 4 X 4 so the grain will be in the orientation you want when Split (vertical) and then cut it into two blanks with a bandsaw. This gives two blanks with the ideal grain orientation and the bit of extra length allows one to cut off end splits.
Dave
I Was
going to post…but, Paul’s post covered most of what I would have said.
other than with epoxy dyes…carbon can also have color:)
and that sharper edges that are durable are obtainable with carbon…not so with wood.
all the carbon paddle makers I know, started by making wood paddles. Most still make some wood paddles.
There is nothing wrong with a wood paddle if made correctly…but carbon lends itself to some characteristics better. (and on a manufacturing note…more repeatable).
Best Wishes
Roy
I had done some research on that
And it came up that it was probably 1/3 Tung Oil, 1/3 varnish, 1/3 other oil (or something like that). But it does have the significant Tung Oil base; not a total scam!
Do you know otherwise, Bryan?
According to the MSDS, Watco Teak Oil
is mostly solvents with some linseed oil, fungicide and proprietary resin mixed in.
I didn’t find any Watco product offered or marketed as containing tung nut oil.
about that color thing
lots of ways to add soul in a paddle…scrimshaw
http://www.qajaqusa.org/cgi-bin/GreenlandCommercialForum_config.pl?page=1;md=read;id=4714
Best Wishes
Roy
or this
http://www.qajaqusa.org/cgi-bin/GreenlandCommercialForum_config.pl?page=1;md=read;id=4715
:)…no affiliation (disclaimer)
Best Wishes
Roy
Balsa Wood
I thought the OP basically wanted three things: light, easy to carve, wood. So naturally I thought of Balsa which I have used for a paddle blade and found to be very good.
Naturally you need to cover it with S glass if you want to see the wood. Or Carbon for a slightly stiffer and lither paddle than S glass.
If you didn’t want wood then their are a lot of foams that are even better than balsa. And today the lightest and stiffest Greenland Paddles I have handles are foam core with Carbon cloth and epoxy finish.
I think the Carbon is over rated compared to nicely done S glass. And S glass vacuum bagged over balsa makes a much prettier paddle!