Carbon fibre paddleshaft.

[Barry]

In John Fryant's column in the Jan/Feb issue of Ships in Scale he mentions using a Carbon fibre paddle shaft. Any on have any idea what sort of bushes you'd use with it? Brass or Bronze would seem to me to be hard and would wear it, or is that just me? Anyone have any experience with Carbonfibre or any ideas? 

[mogogear]

Nylon?

[derekwarner_decoy]

Not sure Barry....could they be talking about shafts that are connected to two individual paddle blades?  like for a canoe? ....Derek

Courtesty of GOOGLE......

Glass fiber and carbon composites are ideal materials for paddle shafts because of their superior stiffness, high strength and low weight. Experienced design plus the additional benefits of warm to touch feel of the material and possibility for ergonomic shapes makes Exel composite tubes an unbeatable choice for paddle shafts.

Exel has several technologies to produce shaft tubes: Pullwinding, Co-winding and Prepreg wrapping.

Depending on performance requirements we can design the shaft structure based on carbon-, glass- or carbon/glass hybrid continuous fibers or fabrics.

The Exel composite shafts are for example being used for whitewater and touring paddles for kayaks, canoe and raft paddles, single blade paddles and racing paddles.

Straight shaft tubes with glass fiber, carbon fiber or hybrid
Conical shaped shafts with glass and carbon structures
Oval shaped shafts
Special shapes based on prepreg structures
Excellent strength and stiffness
Low weight
High durability
Warm to touch feel
Ergonomic shapes
Wide range of composite structures are possible.


 

[Barry]

Nylon would make sense to me. I know Carbon fibre is supposedly stronger then steel etc. I've just never come across it being used as a shaft running in bushes. May be it doesn't matter at the speeds a paddle shaft would rotate at.

[Spankbucket]

Although I have never used this material personally I am aware, from a model yacht group I belong to, that it is used extensively for masts and spars in high-performance model yachts.

As with metal it is available in a range of tube sizes and possibly the next size up from the axle diameter would be the basis for a bearing? Probably metal bearings of any reasonable material would do equally. Then one could use PTFE or Nylon ....

There are endless choices!!!

Cheers......Bernie

[R.G.Y.]

Barry what are the cams for. R.G.Y

[Barry]

The cams are to drive the beam of the walking beam engine. The model in the article is the Dumas Mt Washington. It seems the model is very tender and needs to have a lot of lightness added to the upper works to keep it upright.