Took the tape off the bow this morning. The belly is perfect, but the back has some small air pockets speckled along both limbs.
Is this going to be a fail, or will it still preform. The bow is a 64" R/D. Should come in at 45# if that matters.
Im hoping it will be OK, and just look crappy. Actually to the untrained eye it is probably not even noticeable.
Any insight would be great.
Thanks.
It will most likely be fine. I had this problem on a couple of my first ones, what helped me was warming the epoxy before doing the glue up, and using a lot of it.
Thanks, Kinda figured it was not enough glue. The belly side was glued up last,and theirs not one pocket. This is probably because I used up the rest of the glue I had mixed... it was on their thick.
breazyeard now you have a good project to put some rattler skins on! Those tiny bubbles dont hurt anything except looks.How many are there out there with black glass with bubbles underneath? There is no telling how many!
What kind of wood were you using? I've had a couple customers ask if I knew how to solve this. The best I can figure is there are some woods that retain air pockets in the wood and as the bow is cooked it allows the air to come out leaving the small spots under the glass. So far my suggestion of using really thin veneers (.020") seems to has solved the problem.
I have had the problem with wood with large open pores before.I ended up using my finger to rub in the epoxy to fill the pores first and then spread plenty of it on evenly and I have not had a bubble under clear glass since.
Can very likely be your forms, they may have ripples and bumbs, the forms may not be square.
My form is dead straight, and dead square. I cut it out on a cnc mill.
I like the snake skin idea... the problem is they are very expensive. I don't want the fake cloth ones.
Pretty sure the bubbles are from lack of glue.
Besides the air pockets im happy with the bow. I have shot a few dozen arrows through it, and its fast and smooth...need to get the proper spined arrows though. It ended up at 45# just what I was shooting for.
Ill try to get some pics, with info a little later.
Thanks for the replies guys.
WHAT IS THE AIR PRESSURE ON YOUR AIR HOSE? I HAVE HAD SOME ISSUES AND SINCE INCREASED AIR PRESSURE THAT ELIMINATED ANY MORE ISSUES--ALSO CHECK BEFORE AND AFTER PRESSURE OF HOSE YOU MAY BE LOOSING AIR PRESSURE OVER THE COURSE OF COOKING THE BOW.
CHECK THAT OUT FIRST NEXT TIME
Im with Troy on this, I've had similar experiences with bubinga. My veneers were cut out of a board and were .040. made three sets of limbs and all did the same thing and I changes alot of things. When I went with .025 veneers it went away. I think it was a combo of the piece of wood I was using and the thickness of the veneer. I changed to different stock and went thinner and it went away.