today I started another bbb, this should become a 58" ntn recurve, with a reverse handle. The handle would actually be a 1" thick zebrano powerlam, 12" long.

I took a few pictures while working cutting the boo, and tempering the belly, but I would like to know if you're interested in a buildalong?

I'd be glad to do it  

Nick

hey nick! all your buildalongs are great you do fantastic work, keep em comin.    noel

Nick, that is a stupid question to ask us bow builders. Of course we want a build along! Maybe a few trade secrets too.

DUH!!!!   :rolleyes:  

I'll supply the popcorn, course ya gotta come here to get it.  

see another one of your bows come to life? of course.

Sounds great Nick.

Nah who wants to see that.
   

well then, let's get it started!!!

my rough materials. the boo is still like 78" long, and I use a 64" template for the first shapeing. 2" will eventually be cut off each end, it goes in the form at 62", chopping to 60" after, so it gives me my 58" bow.

so, after the first chopping to 64" and removing the nodes (on the belly) I brought it to the outlines. This time I did the rough shapeing with my 'japanese carpenters axe', followed by some smoothening with my powerless beltsander.

then I tempered the belly slat, in a cheap-ass, but effective way. I didn't put any reflex in, but it still got 2". I do the tempering before the glueup, as the backside will become concave after. This won't give any troubles when you still have to thin and pretiller the boo.

the boo should need a couple of days to rehydrate. But I guess it'll be ready once I get it out of the form, so I'll just continue.

what's next:

- pretillering the lams, getting them to the correct thickness (still mostly guessing)
- fixing the fades of the handle, wich is still just one block
- glueing up

wish me luck!!

Nick

like it so far, gotta build me one of these

Wow, bamboo really looks amazing after being heat treated.

Show us some more!

man wish there was boo 2 hours from here ugg!  gonna have to order more.  

hurry up UPS!!!!

Man this is going to be good as usual

I love the way you improvise Nick.  

I love the look of that heat treated bamboo.

Guys,

somehow all my batteries were empty today, but luckily I could get a few pictures before all went totally out. I feel like I'm letting you guys down right now, but I hope I can explain a bit more.

what I did today:

- tillered the lams
This time I decided to pay a bit more attention to the tiller of the lams. This had gone a bit wrong on my previous BBB, resulting in too soft fades and too stiff outterlimbs. Comparing the total stack of this bow (measured at midlimb) to my previous bbb gave me an idea of how thick I should make my lams. right Now they're just a 1/64" thicker at midlimb, and quite a bit thicker at the fades. This should give me a slightly stronger bow, with less soft fades, and the fact it'll be 2" shorter will also make it draw a little more. Guess it'll 45-55pounds, we'll see what comes out.

 shaped the riser/powerlam

I started with a well-known (for those who follow my buildalongs) tool; the anglegrinder with sanding disc(?), having the riserwood clamped onto a 2x3 block of pine. Then I continued with my beltsander, to get everything square. As I wasn't really happy with the fades, I worked a little more on them having the beltsander mounted upside down in my workmate(I used the picture of my previous buildalong). now I have a tight fit on the fades, but the boo doesn't really fit tight on the top (without adding extra clamps). So I'll work on that tomorrow.

 

 




 

for comparing the stack of both lams I use a monkeywrench(?), as I don't have a caliper yet. Since there's no math behind my previous bow, 'a bit thicker' is sufficient accurate.

Once the stack and tiller are okay, I'll give it a dryrun.

you might notice that I used 2 clamps on either side of the fades, as the boo didn't really bend the way I liked. You might also notice that there's some air in the middle of the riser, between the boo and the zebrano. I'll work on that tomorrow, as I said in the post above.













Nick

so you're tillering before glue up?  are you also checking for weight here too?

what's next:

- final shapeing of the powerlam/riser
- first piking
- rechecking EVERYTHING
- glueing her up.

If everything goes well, I'll get her off the form by friday.

what I'm going to do then is:

- planing the sides, leaving the tips still wider than intended.

- first stringing

- some limb ajusting; like narrowing the outterlimbs from one side to fix twists, etc.

- once this works out, scraping the boo follows.

- then handleshaping, nockoverlays

- shooting it in, then narrowing the tips, final shapeing, sanding and FINISH!

once again, wish me luck!

Nick