Tripping paddle build higher leverage/higher cadence?

[Steve in Idaho]

Like I said in an earlier post, the easiest way I have found to determine the area for an odd shape ... such as paddles, is to just take a piece of paper that is big enough to draw the shape on.
1. Measure the length/width to get the area of that piece, and then fold the paper up and weigh it
2. Draw the blade shape and cut it out
3 fold the cut out and weight it

So as an example, you have a rectangular paper piece that is 10" x 36" and it weighs 2 oz
The area is 360 square inches and the weigh/squareInch is 2 /360 or .00555 oz/squareInch

Your cutout blade shape weighs .56 oz .. the area is .56/.000555 = 100.9 squareInches

This is all predicated on the fact that paper usually has a very uniform thickness and composition. If you have a stack of the same paper, you just measure once to get that weight per square inch, then you can easily determine the area of any shape pretty fast and easy.


Brian

It seemed like more bother than it is the first time I read it. I wonder if I can fold it small enough for my little digital powder scale. I know what you're going to say..... thinner paper.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I wonder if I can fold it small enough for my little digital powder scale. I know what you're going to say..... thinner paper.

Someone might alternatively suggest a bigger scale. Some postal scales are very inexpensive. I'd be inclined to trace on cardboard to get more weight than thin paper.

A different but rough suggestion is to trace the paddle blade on graph paper that has one inch squares. Count all the full squares inside the tracing. Then add your best estimate of how many squares the partials around the edge would add up to. You can buy one inch graph paper or even download a template to a printer for free.

https://www.freeprintablepdf.eu/en-one-inch-graph-paper

 

[yknpdlr]

It seemed like more bother than it is the first time I read it. I wonder if I can fold it small enough for my little digital powder scale. I know what you're going to say..... thinner paper.

A long time ago, I saw somewhere that no matter how thin the paper, it is dificult if not impossible to fold a sheet more than 7 times. Try it.