Knotty Farmhand SUP paddle

featuring blades from reclaimed flyover country barnboard

paddleboard paddles with reclaimed barnboard blades

It's beautiful old wood, often milled from trees cut down to make the farm fields. Wisconsin, for you historians, more than held its own with Minnesota when it came to competing for 'most heavily forested'. I happen to like knots. Not every one does, but if you do, I've found barnboard to have an ideal mix and frequency of knots. I have a nice stash of it here and really enjoy the look of book matched knots in a paddle blade. Barnboard is plenty light. Its own strength combined with front and back pieces of fiberglass on the blade make it more than strong enough. Usually, a Knotty Farmhand paddle is a Solid Citizen shaft and handle combined with barnboard blades.

Most often I remove the red paint because I am after the underlying knots. However, some people do like that red barn patina. I can leave the red on the outside surface, but I rip the blade pieces to about a quarter inch thickness. So one side would be red and the other would be an aged pine appearance, which can be a beautiful honey colored piece of history. The point here is that this style can have some different looks and is most often a build to order paddle, so that the paddler can specify the look of their blades.

If there's a farm or a farmer in your memory and you like to paddle, a Knotty Farmhand canoe or paddleboard paddle could be just the ticket. Farm kids, now all grown up and moved to the city, have called in wondering if they could send me a couple pieces of the barn from the old family farm and make those pieces the basis for their paddle. Yes. I am happy to TRY and work with wood that is sent in. Call first though. It needs to be 'good enough' that I can cut it and not have it fall apart. As we all age, old farm barns are returning to dust. It is hard to work with old wood that has simply become too soft to work.

a custom Knotty Farmhand paddleboard paddle

Classic old barn pine with bookmatched knots and a center shaft piece of Eye Candy Sitka Spruce.

picture of barnboard destined for Knotty Farmhand poaddles

Barnboard lumber reclaimed from an old knock down barn.

picture of reclaimed barnboard paddle

honey colored reclaimed barnboard showing old nail marks and a screw. Both edge trim and a tip guard are options.

Buying a Knotty Farmhand SUP paddle

length of the paddle (inches)