Building a Greenland Paddle, Part 4: Tools and Workspace Setup

Welcome to the Cape Falcon Kayak FREE Greenland Paddle Building Series. In these videos I share the super efficient system I developed to build paddles with my kayak building students.

Contribute to this project by sharing your body size and paddle measurements in the comments or in our Facebook group. Useful information would be: Height, weight, hand size (glove size if you know it), shoulder width (narrow, average, or wide is fine), what kayak you paddle and how often you paddle. Paddle length, tip width, loom width, loom height, loom width. Share your impressions from using the paddle and the building system!

Updates to the information in this video:
This video has been updated and re-uploaded to clarify our recommended router bits.

When I made the sharpening video I had just switched to Shaptons as a more durable alternative to the Norton Stones. They are in fact harder, but the softer grits have the irritating habit of dishing out faster than the harder stones (opposite of Norton stones), which is a big problem because if you don't want to constantly flatten your coarser stones you are left with an edge that takes a LOT more work to hone on the finer grits.

For this reason, I'm no longer recommending the softer 1000 and 2000 grit Shapton Stones, instead, I think a 1200 diamond stone (like a DMT) combined with a 5000 Shapton waterstone works better if you're looking to stay with a 2 stone system. If you want more power for grinding your bevels, a 600 grit diamond stone is a nice third addition, although you will only use it occasionally.

If you just want the cheapest simplest route to a quick sharp edge, the Norton 1000/4000 combo stone is an excellent value, even if they do tend to wear out quicker.

If you're going to be adding hardwood edges to your paddle, I recommend buying an 8000 stone as well and sharpening right before your final edge shaping. (close down the plane throat to avoid tearout!)

If you are a woodworker and you have sharpening system suggestions, please send me an email and share them!

Watch the full series on YouTube here:    • Greenland Paddle Building Course  

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