No really…
Shaw and Tenney makes some lovely paddles. They are wonderfully flexible and are made by people who paddle with them. They are not inexpensive, but they are worth the price, in my opinion. Full disclosure: I don’t sell S&T paddles at the shop, they only sell direct. I’d love to have some, and I’m sure Steve would too, but we figured it’s best if we both don’t lose a few bucks on each paddle and then make it up in volume.
I ordered myself a Sassafras 1897 model last year. I already have one in bird’s eye maple, a gift from the man himself, a limited edition. I have 10 out of 150. It will not touch water, ever. The problem is, I love that blade. So there ya go.
You buy a suit off the rack, and you can probably get away without any alterations if you’re not too fussy about the tailoring. The same is true of paddles. Most folks don’t make alterations to their paddle grips. It seems wrong somehow to take a perfectly sanded and varnished grip and take a pattern maker’s rasp to it.
The only trouble is that the grip is a bit foreign to my hand. It’s a tad big, and has a sharp edge to it that I find gets in the way of a fluid palm roll. There is also a lot of material at the top of the grip, and I’m not accustomed to that. Again…lovely grip. Probably works great for almost everyone, and frankly, would work fine for me.
But my suits are impeccably tailored. Yes, Canoelover wears suits sometimes, mostly for church functions and the occasional funeral, but if you have to wear a suit, wear a good one and make sure it fits. A good suit well-tailored is like wearing a pair of sweatpants. A bad suit is…well…
My paddles are also impeccably tailored. I don’t drastically alter most of them, and some come the way I want them (some of them because I designed the grip for myself).
So I set myself down on a squat little camp stool, tuned in radio church (twice a year I go to church in jeans), and got busy with a Nicholson 49. You go slow, needless to say. Lest you destroy a perfectly good paddle. As it tailoring, it’s easier to cut more off than add more back on.
I started by rounding off some of the more severe angles, just softening them a touch. I took in the sides to make them a bit more like an inverted triangle rather than a pentagon.
I then took some of the weight out of the top grip. I prefer a little roll of wood up top, which creates a hollow into which my palm lays naturally.
So that’s what I did to make my paddle mine. I will give it a good testing once a) the water warms up a little and b) my chest doesn’t feel like this.
Respectfully submitted,
Canoelover