Making a Greenland Paddle with a Router/Intro

Making a Greenland paddle out of a red or white cedar blank is an easy, inexpensive, and satisfying way to add a valuable piece of equipment to your kayaking gear pile.

There's a lot to recommend the simple shape, buoyancy, and flex of a Greenland style paddle.

Greenland paddles are easier on the wrists and shoulder joints, because the shaft is inherently flexible. Their buoyancy speeds recoveries from capsizes. But perhaps most important, the paddle's simplicity of shape -- four blade faces, all identical -- leave no power faces to search for when bracing or rolling, and no convex face to avoid when fumbling to roll or brace. Greenland paddles are also capable of very high speeds, their thin blades notwithstanding.

Two New England kayakers, Dee Hall and Brian Nystrom, make beautiful lightweight paddles.

Dee takes an engineer's approach, as the photos show. First Dee designed a channel jig into which she slid a rough-cut red cedar two-by-four. After securing the jig, she uses a router to rough the paddle into its basic shape. She then uses a variety of hand and power tools, including a random orbital sander, to smooth and refine the paddle before wrapping the lower end of the blade with epoxy and fiberglass.The beauty of her system is how it allows a paddle builder to mechanize the carving process. One simply slides the router back and forth over the jig stations, which are pre-curved to the contours of a Greenland paddle. It took a long time to design, lay out, cut and create the jig, of course!

Brian uses a slower, more traditional method, using a spokeshave and other hand tools. He also laminates some of his paddles, to take advantage of the tonal range of cedar.

Regardless of the approach you take, I'll post more detailed photos and explanations in subsequent posts.

To read the rest of the series:
Making the Rough Cuts with a Router
Refining the Rough Cuts with Rasps and a ShureForm Tool
Using Router Bits
Router Bits: Final Shaping
Final Steps Before Sanding
The jig

Above: members of the North Shore Paddlers Network (East Coast US) during a recent drysuit test session. That's my Greenland storm paddle and Chesapeake Light Craft Yare which I built ten years ago and recently sold.

copyright 2008 North American Kayak Fishing