Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own

I thought the book was great, very informative . What Graham is doing is telling you that there is more than one way to make paddles. You can use mostly power tools, or hand tools. Use what you have or get what you need. Paddle making is a good excuse to get a few new tools.i.e. Lee Valley spoke shaves, etc. Learn how to make half patterns from a table of offsets. Then go to it.Don't get overwhelmed, just get started. You will soon be hearing the song of the spokeshave. Your first paddle will be better than anything you can buy. Use it and you may see things you want to change on the next ones. Keep making paddles. Each gets better and easier. You will build confidence quickly and soon you will be working mostly by sight, Not laying out so much and having much more confidence. Grahams knowledge of paddle making is unsurpassed. This book is worth 3 times its cost.

The book is very thorough in the information. Everything you need to make a paddle is laid out here. Excellent instruction book for beginner or more experienced woodworker. Highly recommend if you wish to learn how to build a canoe paddle.

If you're interested in making paddles, this can be considered a bible.

If you want to make paddles (or things like that... that need to have curves flow into one another), that is THE book. Well explained, many useful techniques to quickly easily achieve a finished product.

A paddle-making friend with far more experience recommended this book to me as "the bible of paddle-making." While Warren's instructions are detailed and clear, the book is aimed at someone with a fair bit of woodworking experience. He starts with a comparison of various styles and paddles and a bit of history. He takes you through paddlemaking step-by-step, explaining what tools (or substitutes for some tools) you'll need. His fairly evenhanded comparisons of various options (ex: oil or varnish to finish the paddle) and advice on what tools are nice to have, those you cannot do without and shortcuts that he's tried (and their varying results) distill his many years of paddlemaking experience into something useful for the hobbyist. He does this with a good dose of humor.) The book includes a variety of patterns and plans. This is my first book on paddlemaking, and, despite my lack of woodworking experience, I think it will be enough to keep me educated and occupied for quite a while. It's thorough and covers every step of the process, including choosing wood, selecting tools, design, carving, caring for the finished product and repair.

This Was quite a surprise. Not only was this book very informative and to the point; IT was a pleasure to read. Well written, warm tone and Nice pictures made me dream about the paddles i am toing to make, and made me confident enough to start. Thank you!

I think this is the best book you can buy if you want to make your own canoe paddles. It covers the full gambit of many paddle designs, (pros and cons), types of wood to use, single wood paddles, lamminate paddles, grain structure of the woods, glues, finishes, tools to use, (depending on how high or low tech you want to be), literally everything. There is a DVD produced by the author that makes a great companion to this book.

I used the book to build a few paddles and found the book very helpful. The pictures alone are worth the price of admission.

Wer sich für traditionelle Paddel, oder auch Holzpaddel interessiert und deren Historie, ist dies das ultimative Nachschlagwerk. Wer sich selbst ein Paddel bauen möchte, kann nach dem lesen alle Anfängerfehler vermeiden und wer schon mehrere Paddel gebaut hat, findet dort viele Tipps und interessante Informationen zum Thema auf den Punkt gebracht. Eine Pflichtlektüre für alle Paddelbauer, das keinen Teilbereich zum Bau von Holzpaddeln offenlässt.

Excellent reference to understand the design and reasoning behind sizing and styles

in this book you have 2 different approach to canoe paddle making one its very detailed with precision, building paddles from boards, or glue it with different woods, other more traditional approach building by eye and feeling from tree or board, or you can combine both how you like. Book has a lot of different style paddles with detailed descriptions, also good historical canoe paddles section . Has also plans for otter tail, beaver tail, voyageurs, and river paddles. Book written very clear and has easy to to follow step by step instructions. If you like canoing and want to have good paddle, but don't want to spend bunch of euros, buy better this book and board, skill that you will get, will always be in you had when you will need it.

Este libro esta muy bien y se lo recomiendo a todo aquel que quiera iniciarse en la construcción de palas de canoas o kayaks. Al final del libro hay varios planos a escala 1:1 que nos ayudaran a hacer los mangos de las palas.

Fantastic book! If you want to carve your own paddles or even if you just want a fun read about them, it's a great book. Inspired me to making my own paddles and carving my own yokes and rebuilding my own wooden canoe components. I now own a used vintage cedar strip canoe that needs TLC and I have no doubts on able to restore it to fully useable now.