: has anybody ever feathered a greenland paddle by steaming the shaft and
: twisting it? good or bad idea?

: and speaking of steamers...

: HSN had a portable hand held "PENGUINE" steamer on TV las night for
: 35$ it was meant for cleaning, but it looked like it might be good for
: spot steaming stubborn strips like the ends of my(and others) guillemots.
: Anyone ever use these for that?

Check the specs on the package, or the instructions, of the cleaning steamer. Some put out "steam" at a fairly low temperature. You want heat for your bending at a fairly high temperature to soften the cellulose of the wood. A trial would be good.

A wallpaper steamer would be another possibility, and in many towns you can rent one of these for a day or two. That may be all you would need it for.

You can reduce the amount you would need to twist the shaft by carving the blades diagonally on the cross-section of the 2x4. That would be from corner to corner, rather than flat down the middle of the 2x4. YOu get a slightly wider blade that way, too. If your 2x4 is 1.5 by 3.5 inches then roughing out the blade diagonally on that would give you a blade that was the hypotenuse of a triangle with a base of 3.5 and a height of 1.5. That would be about 3.8 inches.

Looking at the end of the 2x4 you would lay out one blade to run from the upper left to the lower right. Then on the other end you would lay out the blade to run from the upper right to the lower left.

That layout would give you a small amount of feathering, (and a slightly wider blade) without any steaming. Heating the loom, with steam or a heatgun, and rotating the hot wood should allow you to increase the feather angle to whatever you desire.

Other thoughts:

Rip a 1.5 inch wide piece off of your 2x4 for a loom. Use the remainder for your blades, but re- glue them to the squre loom at 90 degree angles. Again, by shaping the blades on the diagonal of these blanks you should be able to reduce the feathering from 90 degrees to about 70 degrees without any steaming.

Some people make paddles which come apart into two pieces. They are jioned in the middle by a reinforcing piece called a ferrule. Many ferrules permit the ends of the paddle to rotate so they can be aligned flat, or feathered at one or more preset angles.

There is no reason why you couldn't make a flat Greenland paddle, cut it in half in the middle of the loom and install a ferrule. You get a feathered paddle (which can be used straight) with no steaming. and the thing takes apart into shorter pieces which could be easier to stow or transport. A short paddle (or two half-paddles) which you can fit inside your car is less likely to spontaneously find itself a new owner. You can make your own ferrule, or buy one.

However you go about twisting the blade angles, what you will end up with is not going to be a "Greenland" paddle.But, no matter what it is labeled it will certainly be a long, skinny paddle which will have some attributes of a GP and some attributes of a feathered Euro paddle. If these combine to suit your paddling style then you will be very happy with your creation.

The cost of experimenting with this is certainly low enough: A few hours time and a 2x4 or two. It might make a wonderful winter project.

Good luck with this.

PGJ