Paddle Blog

Fiberglass Kayak Paddle Build

5/2/25

I’d been kicking around the idea of building a paddle for over a year.

For the longest time, I held off. I didn’t know how much the materials would cost, I’d never worked with fiberglass before, and honestly, all the different choices—glass weights, epoxy types, wood options—it was overwhelming. Every time I thought about starting, I’d end up closing the tab or walking away from it.

Eventually, I decided to just check the prices. A quart of epoxy was $69. Three yards of 6oz fiberglass cloth ran me about $24. So, all in, it was around $93. At the time, that felt like a lot to gamble on an experiment. I kept wondering—would it even work? Would the paddle just snap? How many could I even make with the materials I priced out? Would this project become a huge money pit?

But after sitting on it for so long already, I finally pulled the trigger and placed the order.

Once everything showed up, I jumped right in. I grabbed a 2x4 I had lying around in the garage and cut it down to size with my circular saw. For the blade, I built a couple of rough molds from scrap wood and filled them with spray foam. Once the foam cured, I carved it down to shape with a utility knife and some sanding blocks.

I sketched out the blade shape I wanted, traced it onto the foam, then did the same on the fiberglass so I could pre-cut a few layers ahead of time.

To keep the epoxy from bonding directly to the foam, I wrapped the whole mold in a plastic bag. Then I laid down the first layer of fiberglass, brushed on some epoxy, and kept going—layer by layer. After three layers, I let it cure overnight and crossed my fingers.

When I checked the glass the next day, I was surprised by how firm it was. It actually felt like a real blade—solid, with no soft spots or sag. That was the moment I realized this might actually work.

I laid the hardened fiberglass shell back on the form, traced the paddle blade outline onto the section of wood where the blade would attach, and cut it out using my jigsaw. Then I positioned the wooden shaft on top of the fiberglass form and started layering more glass over it—three more layers in total. After that, it was another round of curing and waiting.

Once everything had dried, I pulled the paddle off the mold. I was genuinely impressed with how solid it felt. The blade had weight, structure, and the kind of stiffness I was hoping for. At that point, I knew this process would work—and even better, I still had enough materials left to keep going and maybe even make another one.

I took what I learned from attaching the first blade and tweaked my approach a bit for the second. On the first blade, I noticed a slight gap where the curved wood shaft met the fiberglass. It felt a little wobbly—not unsafe, but not perfect. To fix that on blade two, I used some wood filler between the paddle and shaft and clamped it down tight before adding the next layers of glass.

I also decided to beef up the stiffness a bit by adding a fourth layer of fiberglass to the outer face of the blade. For consistency, I went back and did the same on the first blade as well.

By this point, the paddle was starting to look like something you'd see in a whitewater setup. With the blades solid and shaped, my next concern was the shaft. It needed reinforcement, and there were still some visible gaps where the blades joined the shaft.

To strengthen the shaft, I wrapped the entire thing in fiberglass. This ended up being one of the trickier parts of the build—fiberglass isn’t exactly cooperative when you’re trying to spiral it around a round surface. It kept loosening and slipping. Eventually, I wrapped over the fiberglass with masking tape to hold everything tightly in place while it cured.

To deal with the remaining gaps at the blade/shaft connection points, I just flooded them with extra epoxy. Once everything cured again, I peeled off the tape and sanded it all smooth.

That’s when I hit a bit of a setback—I hadn’t realized how thin some areas were, and while sanding, I ended up going straight through all the fiberglass layers in a few spots. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it meant I had to patch things up with small pieces of glass and reapply epoxy to seal everything back up.

Finally, with everything cured, patched, and sanded one last time, I cleaned it all up and brought it down to the river to see how it performed.

It worked great! The paddles felt like a good shape. They slid smoothly through the water without any fluttering of the blade. They were springy but solid. They provided a good bite and a powerful stroke. There were no signs of deformation when applying power to the face, or the back when low bracing.

The shaft also felt solid, despite seeing some knots and imperfections in the wood grain that may later lead to issues. The bade had a good amount of flex, but not so much that it impacted the power of my strokes. The zero-degree offset took a bit of getting used to, but not something that made it impossible or difficult to adjust to. 

When inspecting the paddle throughout the trip, I noticed some water collecting under the shaft’s fiberglass, and between where the paddle blade met the shaft. Some water even started collecting along the seam of the paddle and shaft. These were two issues I would need to address in future builds, but nothing that felt uncorrectable. 

In the end, I had a list of changes I would want to make to my second paddle, some technique tweaks, and some ideas that I’d like to try. 

Materials Used

• 2x4x10 eastern pine

• 1-2 yards of 6oz e-glass fiberglass

• 1 quart of Total Boat 5:1 epoxy

• Spray Insulation

Tools

• Dewalt Circular Saw

• Dewalt Jigsaw

• Clamps

• Plastic Bags

• Epoxy Spreader