Coca Cola's Buildalong thread

[BT]

[BT]

smj said:

upthere said:

The idea is to sit straddling the limb until the shot opportunity presents itself , then you swing down and shoot.

Yeah, I'd guess most of us would swing down and end up impaling ourselves the critters antlers!

;D ;D ;D

[smj]

Thanks for the extra pics! That's a cool looking bow.

[Coca Cola]

Ok I was just messing with the board and the split went about 3 inches further then I thought. So I got out the other board. This board is much lighter in color. Should I be worried about the knot? I can get about a good 70 inch section of this 9 foot board ( Originally thought it was 8) that only has like 4 pea sized knots. My question is the best section of the board has this knot in it ( big one in pic) . Will it affect my bow? I can use other parts of the board but they arent as good.

This piece is a bit more promising. IMO


Knot area unusable. Yay or neigh?

SMJ, is it possible to get the bow to almost final tiller, if I like enough I can buy some boo and glue up some reflex or do I have to glue up reflex before I tiller. I realize if I backed it with boo I would have to re tiller but I dont want to use boo if I dont know the bow will survive?

[Coca Cola]

Normally I would take it back if it wasnt far away and if I knew that there was much better boards there. Because of the knot.



I was contemplating my what my dimensions would be, I figured it would be alright to trace one limb of my last bow and then trace the same limb again to make it a complete bow. Get it? I marked the middle of the bow to the nearest 1/16 and traced the outline, flipped it around and did it again. I ended going right over the knot pictured above. I looked at it all torn up about what to do then looked at it from the side and realized it wasnt deep at all. In my vast knowledge of bow making  I decied to go over it. So Right now I have everything traced out ready to be rasped down into a bow.

. The knot is very close to the edge, or even on the edge as you can see its less then a ring deep? Or am I wrong?




Here is is being traced.


I traced 1 limb twice to keep it consistent.

Forgot to add my Great news. My dad went to a party that a one of his co-workers had. They got talking and somehow the guy learned I made bows in a conversation with my dad. Apparently he is familiar with the subject of selfbows. He said he had a bag of rattlesnake skins wondered if I wanted them . My dad said he would ask so hopefully I will be getting a bag of snake skins! How cool is that? Also I recieved access to a wood working shop through one of my dads friends also! But I wont be able to use for a couple months because the guy is gone in florida.


So tommorow I am going to go ahead with roughing the bow out. Hopefully I can post pics

[BT]

Snake skins can run $50. plus so thats very cool!

I still have to sets but I am to big of a chicken to try and apply them

[Coca Cola]

Really? wow I had no idea. I dont know if they are usable, or how many. All I know is he has a bag of skins. Hopefully there are many, and they are usable. I wont use them though until I get good. At 50$ a pop I will wait a long time.

[smj]

Hickory and pecan get substituted a lot. Either wood is good stuff, same family!

You should get a pine slat and make a pattern. These are easy to modify and cheap to make. The wood is easy to work with, too. Once you put some reflex or make a R/D bow, that whole trace thing kind of goes away. It is much harder to trace the bow.

What to do about knots… I try to avoid them. Any knot is going to change the properties of the wood a lot. It is a section that won’t compress or expand as well. If you must work with a knot, and I don’t mean pin knots or micro knots, you will need to leave some extra material around the knot. They tend to dry out and fall out leaving a hole in your limb. Plus, the wood has very different properties around knots. People make bows with knots all the time, you have to leave extra wood around the knot when making the bow. To me, it makes for a section of limb that won’t flex through its length. This means a dead spot that is just along for the ride rather than storing energy and contributing to the cast of the bow. Really small knots are not a huge problem. But I’d not want one on the belly without a little extra wood. If you can, and the knot does not seem to go all the way through the board, put it under the backing, away from the hard compression sections of the limb. I have some osage that has a couple pin knots in it, I will put the side with the largest diameter of the knot as the back of the bow – and cover it with bamboo. A knot right on the edge of the limb is, I think, asking for trouble. Make a thinner and thicker limb… (Maybe go English longbow style with it?) Try to get a layout without it if you can. Looking at your picture, I don’t see the knot you refer to, you might be fine here!

So long as you keep the back of the bow flat, you should be able to add a backing later. However, keep in mind that while you flex the bow there is no protection from breaking. You will want to make the limbs thicker, and have more depth to the limb, too. My caution would be to not over flex that bow! It may snap on you.

Snake skins and a wood shop… Wow! Sound like a lot of fun!

[Coca Cola]

Hmm... After reading that it worries me. I dont want to spend large amounts of time on something that will snap or could snap or is inefficiant. I havent cut anything yet. Maybe I will just save this for risers. I was thinking that maybe I could grind one of these really think rings down into a backing ( 100% late growth) Then glue relfex into an oak bow? I donk want to waste the wood but I dont want to waste my time aswell.

[Coca Cola]

Ok, I thought to my self, If I wanted success all the time I woulndt have started making bows. I have already started to rough out my bow. The hickory sure is tough. I think I might have to break out the angle grinder.