Another longbow build-along...

[bow wench]

smj said:

Funny you should mention that... I have been thinking about submitting an article to Traditional Bowhunter on how to do this. Break it up in to several issues worth of info. I don't know that I'd write a book on it, but something similar to what I am posting here, and before, I am wanting to try and see if anyone wants to publish it.

You really should do that. I think you may be surprised at the interest. Traditional archery is definitely becoming more popular again.

[smj]

Bamboo - yeah, I know, we've beaten this to death but one more word on it... There is an important little note that I forgot to mention you guys. This could cost you a bow, and it is easy to take care of!

When you lay out your clamps to make certain you have everything ready to go - put just a few clamps on to start with, like one clamp every 2 or 3 inches or so. (Or do this when taking off the clamps - leave clamps every 2 or 3 inches!)


At this point, you really need to check the edges of your bamboo as it sits on the bow board. It should form a tight seam all the way around the edge of the bamboo. It should look like this, without the glue on it so you can really see how it fits together! - it should look like this:


If you find that you have gaps - you will want to work the bumps out before glue up! Obviously, you have two surfaces to consider: the belly wood, the bamboo.
If you do not match them up, you could see this result in your new bow once glued - I keep this one in my shop to remind me of this little step (it is from some time ago!) - the xacto knife goes at least 3/8 of an inch under the bamboo. The limb width is only 1.25"! The other side is tight to the limb, I reduced this side and got the edge about the same thickness, but neglected the middle. It is a painful reminder - I may try to fix it at some point but am not holding out hope for it!


This can happen when the crown of your bamboo is not centered over your pattern - thicker under one side than the other. You cut out your pattern and find one side of the limb is thicker, so you hammer on that side to thin it out and end up with two faces on the bottom of the bamboo rather than one!

So - you take the wood down and bamboo down by sander, hand plane, jointer, rasp, however you elect to do it. Now when try to put them together you get something like the above mis-match... What do you do? Well, running everything through the jointer will help clean up almost all of it. (Bamboo that thin is hard to do on the jointer - but can be done. Watch those pinkies!!!) What is recommended is a toothing plane. However, those run about $100. Also, you should grind the blade slightly round so that you can make the surface slightly concave - which really helps to pull the surfaces together. I have found that you can do this very well, very slightly, with great control, by putting a bend in the hacksaw blade and baring down on it as you pull it the length of the limb. Start in the middle, multiple passes to get the grooves we talked about elsewhere, and then keep going to actually remove a small amount of material from the bamboo, or the board, or both. Once I have a close fit, I like to remove material from the bamboo to accomodate the fit. The slight curve allows you to create the concave surface -


Last, shown elsewhere, make sure that you have support under the bamboo when work glue surfaces. I place strips of cork under the bamboo mid-node to support the work surface. This is shown in a previous build.

[smj]

By the way, Red - the one that is the example of how these two should fit together... That is your bow! We'll be cutting it out next, then putting on the grip, then tillering.

[red]

Sweet...glad to hear I have the good one.

[red]

BTW: the tillering is something I've never really understood...I am looking forward to that part of the process.

[smj]

So, the bow is off the jig and it is time to clean things up a bit and see if this will indeed make a bow for us... Hope so...

So, once it is done, we remvoe the clamps in the same order as we'd put them on. Here we are at the last 3 three clamps -


Remove the limb clamps, then the mid-bow clamp. The bow will rise up off of the jig a bit, it will relax out a bit -


You pull this thing off of the jig - it is a mess! Glue, tape, and plastic wrap everywhere! (By the way, use fresh tape, tape that will come off after being on for a couple days. Old tape is a real pain in the arse to remove...)


Pull off the plastic wrap, pull off the tape, what about the glue??? OK - the bamboo husk does not like anything sticking to it. It is like it is wax coated. The glue pops right off -


I like to take off enough glue so that I can see the outline of the bamboo pattern. Then I am ready to trim it up on the bandsaw -


When you trim the bow out, leave an 1/8 inch extra belly wood outside the edge of the bamboo -


We end up with this -


So how do we take off the rest of the glue? (Which, by the way, is about as sharp as razor blades so watch your pinkies real carefully! Also note that you don't need a fancy vice, two quick clamps and some cork on my desk top works really great to hold the bow while you are working on it. They are quick to use, too.) I have 3 files I like to use for this work - the result is real quick, takes about 2 minutes per limb edge. Start rough and end smooth! Glue is gone. You can see the files on the bench -


I'll sand it smoother when we get there, but for now this just works really good -



Next we will glue on a grip block.

[smj]

By the way, here is close up of the files used -


And if you cut or sand or rasp osage, you get a fine yellow dust everywhere... I suggest clean it up as you go or it will end up in places you've not thought of before... Like a butt print in yellow on the dark green sofa...

[smj]

A grip block...

First, we go find our raw materials.


If you have a jig saw only, use another piece of wood to create a fence to guide the materials thru the saw blade. First we cut the redheart to width, then we set the cut block on end and slice the thin strip off of it. I go back to the jointer to flatten out the slice, take off the saw marks. (You could just sand this down, too.)


Once done with the sizing, right width and length - this time 1.9" wide and 13.5" long for the redheart, 13" long for the cocobolo-


Time to fit the block to the bow.


I use the curve of the bow to mark out a curve on the grip block. This is just for roughing out. I start on the jointer and create a taper. This just waists off a lot of the extra material from the ends of the block.


After this I will fit by using the belt sander. #60 grit to get close, 220 grit to fine tune the fit. There is more to do here, I will have to finish up tomorrow.

[red]

Coming along great...actually starting to look like a bow. You do a great job with the pics.

[smj]

Thanks!

By the way, I use the jointer to ensure that I keep everything flat as long as I can before going to the sander. Once on the sander, it is easy to get out of square.