Thanks Bill, As a matter of fact, the bird's mouth method automatically turns out a "bent shaft" paddle, in that the blade is inclined to the shaft, or loom, rather by necessity. Now the REAL trick would be to make a STRAIGHT shaft paddle using the bird's mouth method. :-)

The bird's mouth bent shaft paddle isn't anywhere near as slick as what you have -- I have one too, made by Murray Marchment, see photo, weighs 12.2 oz (a medium Zaveral Flatwater or Power Surge is ~10 oz). The thing about the bird's mouth, however, is that a practiced woodworker such as yourself can easily crank one - or a small batch of them - out in two days flat. Call it four for a complete epoxy and fiberglass finish. As I said in my beavertail page, ease of manufacture is certainly a feature that's worth consideration in a homemade paddle, just depends on what you're after. And on top of being real easy to make, it results in a super strong, very lightweight paddle, and perfectly cheap paddle. It lacks refinement, but makes a splendid utility paddle -- that many do consider refined at that.

: Very cool Kurt and pretty paddle :)

: Ok, now I want to see how to make a bent shaft birds mouth canoe
: paddle .....looks like you like challenges :)

: I've got one that I paid nearly $100 for and love it, but I'm not
: gonna cut it up to see how they did it, weighs practically
: nothing.

: Yeah I know, $100 is cheap for one.

: Bill H.