Do you think putting insulation tape or something similar on your paddle blade to reduce harm to your board would increase friction as you remove your paddle from the water, to a point where you would notice the difference after a long paddle?

Stephenseals said..
Do you think putting insulation tape or something similar on your paddle blade to reduce harm to your board would increase friction as you remove your paddle from the water, to a point where you would notice the difference after a long paddle?

You would never notice the tape.. unless it's all worn.. pealing.. and cut up.. and when mine gets like that I just replace it..

www.seabreeze.com.au/News/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/How-to-protect-your-paddle-blade-with-tape_7770254.aspx

DavidJohn said...

Stephenseals said..
Do you think putting insulation tape or something similar on your paddle blade to reduce harm to your board would increase friction as you remove your paddle from the water, to a point where you would notice the difference after a long paddle?

You would never notice the tape.. unless it's all worn.. pealing.. and cut up.. and when mine gets like that I just replace it..

www.seabreeze.com.au/News/Stand%20Up%20Paddle/How-to-protect-your-paddle-blade-with-tape_7770254.aspx

I think that's possibly the neatest looking electrical tape work I've seen.

I have used DJ's paddle tape x 3 layers so that when my wife and daughter are on my boards it reduces the potential damage.
As learners they tend to hit the rails a little more often than I do.
If the tape happens to produce a black mark (very rarely) I use another one of DJ's tips, "magic eraser", to remove the marks.

Nito tape is what I use its great.

Just a word of caution - Mr Sheen contains a silicone emulsion - silicone is a board repairers worst enemy and I refuse to bring silicone or anything on it inside my workshop if I can avoid it - it contaminates tools and eventually other boards.

Polishing your gear is great - just find a silicone free polish!!

And if you have to use a flexible mastic for anything - use urethanes.

BigLump said..
If the tape happens to produce a black mark (very rarely) I use another one of DJ's tips, "magic eraser", to remove the marks.

Or just use a tape of the general color of the rails as the last tape layer.
Any color in fact, I use different colors for each paddle to tell them apart quickly, and it seems that only the black ones leave marks.
I tend to use orange, red for my surf paddle, handy to find the paddle if you lose it.

Alas, here I can only find the quality tapes (3M) in black, so I use black 3M for the fist layer to insure proper adhesion to the blade and finish by a colored cheap one.

Another trick: use a wide one for the lower layer, and narrower ones for the top layers if you are anal about performance, to get a nice progressive thickness.