I soak a length of nylon cord in unthickened epoxy and pin it on the end of the paddle, let it cure and then cut, plane and sand it to shape. Then I mask the face of the paddle and make a form with tape around the perimeter and use fumed-silica thickened epoxy to fill it up to the paddle surface. After curing and a more sanding I glass the paddle faces wrapping the glass to over lap at the tip. The fumed silica makes a nice opaque white tip hiding the embedded cord. I got the idea from Gil Gilpatrick's book, except he uses twisted cord and clear epoxy.

I borrowed Scott Dollmeyer's picture of my paddles from his "Aricas Silver" website and atteched it below. One of these days I'll buy a digital camera.

: I would skip the microballoons. I've thought about using Cabosil myself, but
: haven't tried it yet. It should make a very tough, long-wearing surface.

: I add white pigment (West Systems) to the epoxy. This protects all but the
: top layer from UV and creates a somewhat traditional "bone tip"
: look. It wears with use (or is that "abuse"?) and you'll
: probably find yourself sanding it down and re-coating it once or twice a
: year, so UV degredation should not be a problem. It hasn't been with my
: paddles so far.