Another pizza paddle

The thread from @Stoneface in which Frank provided an excellent description of the crafting of a pizza paddle was very timely. Less than a week later I was asked if I would be interested in crafting a paddle for a young lad very keen on baking bread. Based on Frank's thread I thought, why not give it a go and so I agreed. Therein was my first mistake, I failed to ask about the dimensions. Turns out the lad wanted a paddle 15x15" with a 20" handle. While within reason, the width immediately ruled out the easy route of using the the 735 to shape the blade unless I shaped the blade in sections. Not being keen on glueing up a taper I elected to use the Supermax 16" drum sander which just covered the project. While the process required a lot of passes which became rather tiring based on the mass of the sled (see Frank's description for details on the sled) it does appear to have worked. The ROS took the final steps down to 220 grit with hand sanding on the edges. By taping a 1" x 1/16" strip to the leading edge during the final sanding I was able to further taper the leading lip of the paddle as well.

I choose Mahogany, Walnut and Maple for the project and the resident quilter created the pattern and suggested the dimensions for the handle based on several skillets. The finish was 2 coats of warm butcher block oil followed a coat of mixed butcher block oil, bees and carnuba wax.

The 2 lateral photos show the front and back sides of the paddle and the slight taper on the lip

Comments are always appreciated. No doubt those with a keen eye will see the minor asymmetry in the paddle.