Folbot Super paddle repair notes

I'm blogging my notes in case they're any use to someone else who's got an old Folbot to fix up.  I'll blog repair notes for the Tyne tandem folder when I remember to take some photos. 

The Folbot paddles.

 I got two two-part kayak paddles with the Folbot.

One paddle blade was beginning to separate from its shaft, making that paddle unusable.  Both paddles have chipped varnish and some mildew stains on the wood.  Each blade has a thin aluminum sheath folded onto and riveted to the end, and these are corroded inside and out, sometimes to the point that the rivets are beginning to fall apart.

The aluminum sheath on the end of the paddle blade.

I removed the partially-detached blade by using a heat gun to to warm up the glue as I pulled the blade away from the shaft.  I think the other three blades will have to be re-glued to the shafts so that they don't fail at some inconvenient time. 

The cleaned and partially sanded blade.

The aluminum sheath.

The detached blade minus its sheath.  You can see a little of the old glue where the shaft was.

I removed the sheath from the loose blade by breaking off parts of the rivets with pliers, drilling out the shafts as needed, and so on.  I scrubbed the blade with a nylon brush and water to get as much of the white corrosion gunk off as I could, then began sanding to get at the rest of it.

The blade is going glued back on to the shaft once the end has been sanded to remove the varnish.  I'm going to use epoxy (mixed with dark sawdust) to fill the holes and the small cracks between the holes and the blade end (probably) wrap the blade and shaft ends with fiberglass tape.  The blade will be re-varnished as needed once the shaft is ready to be varnished.

Fiberglass tape.  This seems to be easier to work with than strips of fiberglass cloth, which can fray badly at the edges and make a mess if you aren't careful when you are adding the epoxy.

 The varnish on the shaft is chipped and damaged in places, especially at the end of the ferrule.  I took the ferrule off to make it easier to sand off the varnish.  The ferrule is held on with a pin and by the indentation where the pin was driven in.  I pulled the pin in the photo out with my fingernails and some needle-nose pliers and then I drilled out the hole to remove the indentation so that I could pull the ferrule off.  I could use a brass or stainless flathead screw when I put the ferrule back on--maybe with some kind of coating to keep the dissimilar metals from corroding--or I could drill a new hole for the pin and pound it back in, then fill the old hole with epoxy.

The inside end of the shaft and its bronze ferrule and retaining pin.

I'll probably re-varnish the shaft before I glue the blade back on--that might make it easier to clean up the excess glue.

I'll post some notes about minor problems with the tubes, the wood frame parts, and the seats another time, and I might post about the carry bags and other trivial stuff if it seems like there is any interest.