shortening an Epic 2-piece paddle from a 210-220?

NEbody foresee a problem shortening an Epic 2-piece paddle from a 210-220 to a 205-215 by cutting 5cm off each end at the joint?

Ah yeah, my maths ain't the greatest but its still better than yours!

I guess I misspoke about removing 5cm on each end.
Actually it looks like I would have to cut the locking piece off, dig out the piece of the shaft that would remain inside it and re-glue the locking piece on at the new, 5cm shorter, length.
Have any of you tried this?

There was a thread dedicated to doing this about 3-4 months ago, might be worth a search.

If you have a look at the round section of shaft where the paddle halves join (middle of the paddle when halves together) you will notice that there is about 10cm of round section before the shaft gradually changes shape to create the oval where the blades go into. If you cut 5cm off each side you will only have 5cm of shaft on each half for the internal sleeve to fit into snugly. I avoid going under 7cm whenever I can with any blade or insert into a shaft. The oval shafts are designed to be shortened at the end where the blades go into.

Cheers
John

I've got a good deal on a Epic Mid Wing but the length is 215-225 and the guy at the web-shop warned me about shortening it myself, cutting the shaft at the blade end was not a good idea according to him.
Have never seen the paddle so it's hard to tell if he's right.
I want to make the shaft 5-7cm shorter.
If I understand you correctly johnno1977 there should be no problem shortening the shaft at the blade end?
I hope Epic fasten the blades to the shaft with hot melt adhesive (don't know if this is the correct name but I mean the glue that softens when you warm it up)?

If you are going to shorten by 5 or less centimeters then you may be able to do it at the middle but it is the shaft ends at the blades which are cut to adjust the lengths. This will make sense as soon as you look at the shafts. The round section is only about 10cm long and should not be cut too short as this makes the shaft more susceptible to breaking at either end of the insert. I am not certain if epic use hot glue or not. I would ask epic. If it is a heat glue try not to heat the necks too much as the foam inside the blades can expand and cause the necks to open up on the blades. Heat gradually and use as low as temp as possible to soften the glue.

After looking things over I don't think I want to mess with the blade ends. If I cut the middle of the shaft at the locking device how difficult do you think it would be to get the small section of shaft out of the end of the locking device? I could then cut enough off of the shaft to end up 5cm shorter? I'd probably only have to cut an additional 3cm off to end up with a 5cm length reduction.

I know the Epic dealer here in Auckland can shorten these. Perhaps your Epic dealer can do it for you?

Hi,
The one problem you will have with removing the locking collar is if you get the alignment wrong by 1mm you will have a 5 degree error.
It is very important to make sure the paddle assembly before gluing is bang on zero and then mark the collar and shaft to that position.
When gluing use a waxed 25.4mm sleeve 1 inch rod to align the shaft and the collar(do not use the paddle ferrule), then glue shaft and collar aligning the marks on the collar and shaft.
If it is a new paddle it will have hot melt glue joining the blades, this can be gently warmed and you can remove the blade and trim the shaft, I would then remove the glue and epoxy the blade in with quick set Araldite or similar epoxy.

I did just that on mine - worked OK. Look-up the thread for more info.

I would advise against shortening from the center, even though my paddle seems to hold-up just fine after I chopped-off right at where the colar ends over the shaft.

I could not remove the collar. Had to scrape-off the shaft from inside the collar after I cut the collar and shaft off.

I also removed (easy, with heat) the insert from the other half of the paddle and swapped places with the collar - so my collar is now on the other side of the paddle - I reglued the collar on the side where the insert was and the insert where the collar was.

If the blades could be removed easily (someone said boilng water did the trick for them), I would recommend going that route - shorten as mych as you want with no concern of weakening the center of the padlle where you can only remove about 1" at most and even that seems to weaken the paddle...

Thanks to all for the info.

Being a dedicated DIYer I went ahead and used a heat gun to try and remove the locking collar and discovered that this collar is bonded to the shaft with an elastometric, kind of rubbery, black, bonding compound. The heat seemed to help a little but carefully drilling just the compound out the four holes through which I think it was injected allowed me to remove the collar by pulling the shaft with the collar held by a piece of wood I cut to just fit the shaft but not the collar. I clamped the wood in a vise, pulled on the shaft and the collar came off without too much trouble and with no damage to any parts. I then carefully cut 5cm off the shaft using a wrap of tape as a guide to make a square cut. I slipped the collar back on and inserted the other end of the shaft into the cut off end and I now have a 205-215 paddle. I'll have to scout around a little to see if I can find some thick, black, flexible, rubbery bonding compound to bond the collar back on. Epoxy should do the job too. I can see no reason why the center of the shaft is any weaker unless I'm missing something.
Removing the yellow tape and messing with the blades didn't seem like a good idea to me.
I'm open to suggestions.
Kocho, why did you move the insert from one side to the other?
Since the colar is bonded with a flexible material alignment doesn't seem like a major issue to me.

About the shaft being weaker. On my paddle, the section of shaft that is round (from the colar toward the blade) was very short. A bit over 1 fist wide on each side away from the center. After that it becomes oval and wider, so it offers no support for the insert.

After cutting off only about 3cm or so, the insert is now longer than the round section of the shaft, so I only have about 1 fist round section to hold the insert against the shaft. As a result, when the 2 halves of the paddle are joined they wiggle more than before. So, I moved the insert to the side that I cut, because there it is glued to the shaft and the "free" half of the inset now goes to the half of the paddle where I have a full-length round section.

I used 3M 5200 Marine Adhesive to attach the insert and the collar on my paddle, It is white and thick and expands a bit after application. Seems to be holding-up well.

Thank you for that explanation. I see what you mean and it makes good sense.

Hi There,

if you want to make your paddle 5cm shorter then cut 2.5cm on either ends, do not cut the entire 5cm from one side. The blades should be glued in with hot melt, all you need to do is heat the shaft up until you see some glue oozing out the sides. Remove the blades and wait for the glue inside the shaft to harden(cool down), cut 2.5cm of either side. sand the inside of the shaft but not too much and the same goes for the blade stubs. put your paddle together and set it at Zero degrees without the blades glued in, prepare a flat surface normally 2 chairs or tables. glue your blades in and put your paddle on the flat surface power face down, push on the blades to make sure there is no slop so that your blades will be aligned with your zero degree angle.I hope this helps.

I had a test paddle especially made to 195 to 205cm.
It has almost the exact shaft as the Epic and to make it shorter, they shortened the middle sections.

The join is supported only by the collar as the shaft goes oval just outside of this.

If I were doing this to another Epic paddle and if the locking collar came off as easily as mine did and if the center support shaft is easy to remove I would have cut 2.5cm from each end of the shaft at the center and put it all back together. I will probably do this on my s/m Epic.
I'm not comfortable messing with the blades and I don't want to remove the yellow Epic logo tape from the blade ends of the shaft.
I do need to measure how far the blade ends go into the shaft ends which may cause me to change my mine especially if they have a fairly long fitting.

For what it's worth the blade extend 4" into the shaft on Epic paddles. If you don't mind disturbing the yellow logo tape where the blades fit into the shaft cutting at the blade end probably is a better way to go although my paddle that I shortened 5cm in the middle works great.

Since I have another Epic paddle I want to shorten and I have a Fenn 4 I want to convert into a two-piece paddle I continue to rethink this issue.
This is a little bit interesting to me, anyway. The Epic Mid that I shortened by 5cm by simply removing the locking collar and cutting the full 5cm from that end ended up with a 52cm shaft length on the shaft that I cut and a 51cm shaft on the other end. I'm currently using it without the locking collar so I can change the feather easily as I paddle. Without the locking collar installed the overall length is about 203cm.
All things considered,if the blades can be easily removed from the shafts as someone on this forum says they can, I now think I'd sacrifice the yellow tape where the blades join the shaft and cut the same amount from each end of the shaft to whatever length I'd want as the end result.