My wife and I are kayak and SUP (stand up paddle board) fans. We have two kayaks and three paddle boards. After using LED strip light for rock lights on my 4runner, I got wild hare and decided to add LED strips to one of our paddle boards. That turned out to be a great success. Then my wife saw someone with a lighted paddle on Facebook and decided she wanted one.
I started by cutting a 1 in dowel rod into thirds. I then routed a 1/3 in strip out of the out side of each of the out side strips. This allowed a slight recess for the LED strips to sit in. The wooden buck was covered in three layers of carbon fiber sleeve. Once the carbon cured, I knocked out the center section of the dowel and then pried off the two outside pieces. The blade of the paddle is a piece of balsa wood with slots for the LED routed out. It was covered in two layers of carbon and epoxied onto the handle.
For the first layup, I used heat shrink to compress the layers and insure a good bond. It is the first time I've done that particular method. It came out okay. For the final layup, I went with a more traditional vacuum bagging technique.
The lights were super glued to the outside and then the entire paddle was wrapped in fiber glass to ensure everything was good and water proof.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the buck and it is really hard to take pictures while doing a wet layup.
Not the best picture, but the shaft of the paddle is in front and the heat shrink is in back:
Testing the electronics:
Final layup:
I started by cutting a 1 in dowel rod into thirds. I then routed a 1/3 in strip out of the out side of each of the out side strips. This allowed a slight recess for the LED strips to sit in. The wooden buck was covered in three layers of carbon fiber sleeve. Once the carbon cured, I knocked out the center section of the dowel and then pried off the two outside pieces. The blade of the paddle is a piece of balsa wood with slots for the LED routed out. It was covered in two layers of carbon and epoxied onto the handle.
For the first layup, I used heat shrink to compress the layers and insure a good bond. It is the first time I've done that particular method. It came out okay. For the final layup, I went with a more traditional vacuum bagging technique.
The lights were super glued to the outside and then the entire paddle was wrapped in fiber glass to ensure everything was good and water proof.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the buck and it is really hard to take pictures while doing a wet layup.
Not the best picture, but the shaft of the paddle is in front and the heat shrink is in back:
Testing the electronics:
Final layup:
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