When installing overlays on tips and risers, how do you get them to feather out without getting into the glass? I just finished my first glass bow, but I do not have a real smooth transition from the tip over lays to the glass. Thanks in advance. :help:
When I'm putting overlays on my wood bows I try to get the overlay piece as feathery as possible before I glue it on.
I preshape them to a nice bevel,wrap a thin block 1/4 x 1.5 x 3 with plastic wrap, and clamp the end down with the block really good first.
I have also gone to taping grip overlays with masking tape where they go so they don't slide as much.
That said, I STILL sand down into the limb glass to get it to look decent.
I have heard of putting a pc of clear glass under the overlay , but haven't tried it yet.
This is the hardest part of building a bow to me.Lately I have had good luck by prefeathering the overlays and then wiping the glue away from the overlays and then when dry very carefully sand with 150 grit to clean it up. I am still not satified so I wish someone would come up with a better method. Bob
On tip overlays, I dryfit the overlay, make a slight pencil mark on the back of the bow along overlay edge, then I blue masking tape along the pencil mark. I also blue masking tape along the side and belly. This virtually eliminates the sanding of glue for me. I have learned that it is easier to peel of the tape before the glue fully dries.
Perry - I'm assuming you will have several layers of wood in your tips. Try beveling the bottom layer at a 30 degree angle prior to gluing up. The subsequent layers overlap a bit, but the overhang is removed during tip shaping.
For the shaping, I use a relatively small file with a big price that I purchased for this purpose. It worked well to remove wood down close to the intersection of the tip and glass (using it at 90 degrees to the limb), then I use sandpaper in the final bow smoothing to eliminate the last remaining ridge between the glass and tip. Go SLOW. I was surprised by the results - it don't notice any sanding dip into the glass. Let me know how the tips turn out. mk
http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/2080472/29023/Iwasaki-Carving-File-200mm-Flat-Fine-Cut.aspx
I pre feather but also use a buffing wheel on a grinder with buffing compound to help blend it in.
I get into the glass just a bit cause it looks good. Scrim doesn't start for about .008 of an inch so you have a bit to work with. Just go slow.
A small file works great just go slow.
Scrim starts about .025