M bo batan

You Tube Paddle Making

A fellow paddling enthusiast and blogger, Bryan, informed me a of YouTube posting documenting the manufacturing process of canoe paddles by the Grey Owl Paddle company. Apparently it was part of a TV show called How It's Made. I've been living for 10 years without cable TV so tend to miss out on these things.

The video is actually divided into 2 separate posts. Part 1 starts at 3:45 in this video and finishes with Part 2 at the start of this clip


Part 1 & 2 of the Videos
Pretty interesting to watch the industrialized side of paddlemaking. Using all those power tools sure makes the process quick but there's still something to be said of paddles handcrafted with time, patience, and sweat. I was nevertheless surprised at the amount of basic human involvment, from the tracing of the pattern with a pencil, to cutting out the blank with a bandsaw, and sealing the paddle with varnish. The whole endeavour looked like a highly efficient, but pretty standard woodworking shop

I especially liked the documentation of cutting a slot on the blank edge and filling it with thickened epoxy to form a more rugged tip. Until now, I never really knew how the expoxy tip was so well formed on the blade.

Thanks to Bryan again for keeping me in the loop! And if any readers out there have more info on paddle related stuff, feel free to email me