The website I bought it from calls it Argentine lignum vitae; they have 2 kinds, genuine and argentine.  They seem really similar, but I have only pen blanks of the other.  It doesn't turn as green, but I've never had it under the lights.  It didn't seem like moisture; the resin was black and dried so hard I had to chip it off of the bottom of the oven.  I have only used the lights for Katalox and the Argentine lignum vitae.  I think Purple Heart and bloodwood also react to UV, but I haven't tried it.  I just think it's really neat; it only takes about 10-20 minutes to have a major affect.

I'm finishing up the one with the faux snakeskin.  It's looking pretty cool.  I'm still struggling to find a good way to clean up glue where the overlay hits the fiberglass without sanding into the glass.  I tried taping a little piece of an aluminum pressure strip, and that works okay.  I saw a post on here about what looked like a little putty knife, but wasn't able to find the specific product.  I love making these things. 

[attachment=1][attachment=2][attachment=3]

This one turned out pretty good as well.  It's a little thinner than the other one and I'm not sure I like the finger grooves in the back overlay; I wanted to try it, but it's one of those things where you gotta know when to stop.  Also, these were the first two where I kind of gave up on the tillering tree that was confusing me.  Someone said something about the tiller being built into the design of the fiberglass bows, so I did what Kenny shows in one of his build along and marked increments along the limb and compared width top to bottom.  Then hand sanded them to match.  I used a limb profile template instead of connecting two dots and that made the second one a lot easier to get right. 

One thing that surprised and kind of confused me; the Australian walnut on the belly, I had dyed it green to match the lignum and rattlesnake skin.  Under the glass it looks completely brown, like it was never dyed at all.  The only thing I can think of is that when I started the heat strips, it went a few minutes without the thermocouple between the heaters, which causes the temp controller to run away.  I did that once and in less than an hour it was close to 400 degrees, totally destroyed the bow.  This time it was only 5 minutes or so and it reached about 260 to 280 or so before I caught it.  Took a few minutes to cool down.  It doesn't seem to have affected anything, but I thought maybe the heat affected the color of that veneer.  Although that was my first time using the dye (water based from Bingham's).

A wide flat sharp chisel can work on those transitions.  Meaning to use on the glue and not the overlays.

I was able to get most of the glue chipped off this way, and a little sliver of tape that was left under the glue. It worked pretty good, thank you for the suggestion. It still looks a bit sloppy to me compared to some of the bows I've bought from pros, but it may be fine after pre-finish sanding and clear coat. 

Quote from: Mike L. on May 12, 2021, 06:16:38 PM
I was able to get most of the glue chipped off this way, and a little sliver of tape that was left under the glue. It worked pretty good, thank you for the suggestion. It still looks a bit sloppy to me compared to some of the bows I've bought from pros, but it may be fine after pre-finish sanding and clear coat. 

If it looks sloppy before finish, it's likely to look worse after. Finish for me it only amplifies mistakes.
Might want to fuss with it some more. Finish sucks to remove!

Yup, the finish will bring all the little imperfections to light.

here is a pic of a bow I made of Lignum Vitae a little over a year ago and another one of that bow today.[attachment=1][attachment=1]

well that didn't work.  That is the, today photo, this will be the one from a year ago.[attachment=1]

Wow, that's gorgeous.  I love that wood.  Do you know whether that's the Argentine lignum vitae?  Did you happen to get it from bell forest?  They still seem to have some in stock, but I don't think they had another piece as big as I was looking for

Thanks Mike,  I'm not sure which it is.  A good friend bought it for me after I mentioned to her how much I like it. It was actually a crotch of a tree.  I had to cut it up with my chainsaw. The lignum vitae flower is the national flower of Jamaica and my wife and I have a few carvings that we bought over there.  I always liked the heavy weight of it.  I was afraid of the oil also but I wiped it down before I glued it up and haven't had any trouble with it.  I managed to take a nice buck and a turkey with it last fall.[attachment=1]

SWEET!! Great looking bow!!

Thank you Kenny

Those are really nice looking bows! Just need to get rid of that nasty handle wrap and do some checkering

Flem,
I couldn't agree more.  It is always fine until hunting season when I start wearing a glove.
I even have the checkering tools but I'm afraid I'll mess it up.

Nice buck too, I neglected to say that!

Quote from: Badlands on June 08, 2021, 09:49:40 AM
Flem,
I couldn't agree more.  It is always fine until hunting season when I start wearing a glove.
I even have the checkering tools but I'm afraid I'll mess it up.

I know the feeling! I have some G-10 that I want to checker, but have been putting it off for fear of an irreparable screw-up

Actually I'd like to try stippling one but I'm not sure I can keep things symmetrical.