: After reading the WoodenBoat article on the Bird's Mouth Technique for making
: hollow spars, I thought, "Hey, that could be used for paddle
: shafts".

: The magic of the bird's mouth technique is that the pieces are all
: self-aligning and no special jigs or fixtures are needed.

: So, last night, I laid up my first one.

: I used 6 strips of 1/4" x 7/16" spruce, and 2 strips of 1/4" x
: 11/16" spruce (to make it oval). One narrow edge of each strip had a
: 45* rabbet cut in it to receive the corner of the adjacent piece.

: Notice that I increased my strip sizes from those shown to give me an overall
: paddle shaft size of about 1 1/8" x 1 3/8". The sizes shown are
: for a shaft sized for my wife, which I'll lay up tonight.

: I used 8 SS hose clamps and a generous assortment of spring clamps to hold it
: all together. When it was all clamped (ends tightly clamped, middle
: loosely clamped) I grabbed the ends where you'd place your hands with
: screw clamps and twisted a 65* or so right feather into the shaft. Voila!
: A hollow, feathered shaft. I just need to figure out a nice way to plug
: the ends where they're exposed at the blades.

: I also plan to lay up a few straight shafts to build Greenland paddles or
: take-apart paddles.

: Shawn

Shawn you really have a winner here I laid one up this afternoon from some red and white cedar strips with 6 oz cloth on the inside and gave it a 70 degree twist. I had to stretch the innertube onto some 3/8" copper tube for the 1/2" inside width . surgical latex tubing would probably work,or better still the silicone tubing wouldn't stick to the epoxy at all and leave the inside absolutely smooth. but anyway I must put hose clamps on my shopping list , they would have made it easier , but it went pretty smoothly, with no bulging like that sample I made yesterday. also I rounded the rest of that 2 ft sample to what I thought was fairly even and then cut it into four inch lengths and the thickness variation was unacceptable . the mahogany shaft I laid up the day before did poorly in the destructive testing, delaminating from the glass core easily .. open grain and loose fiber. the pine sample shaft stayed together very well. Rounding the birdsmouth shaft should be a snap with little chance of getting too thin . now I have to make some blades worthy of this stick. Thankyou muchly Later Bill