Chips Ahoy! A longbow

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

This bow has been a long time coming. IT is a bow for a dear friend of mine.  Chip from Wildfire Artistry.  To begin with This is the second bow... The bow design was new and I was still learning the stack thickness to weight and it came out HEAVY!!!!  78#.  So after a few more trials I think I got it close so I am going to give it a try again.  First Chips favorite woods are zebra, and Purple heart. And a little curve in the riser please!

Here are the riser parts for this bow.



and the glued up riser!

Uh OH!  The parts slid during the curing process.  GAP ALERT< GAP ALERT GAP ALERT!!!



SOOOO,  I Took the band saw and cut the parts apart.  Yes that can be done!





and then some clean up.



a little simpler this time.



Now it is time to start grinding the laminations!

pete

[kennym]

Smooth on is like greasin em!!

[highnoonhunter]

Looks like the arm is feeling better!

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

Boy ya got that right Kenny!  Hot bacon grease between two pieces of warm glass I tell ya!  I'll bet I am the first person to ever have them slide out of position.  Stuff like that only happens to me!  

pete

[ChristopherO]

That looks like a real purdy combination, Pete.
I've learnt that the best for me is to cut out the curves whilst the riser is still just a block of wood, oversized a 1/4 of an inch in width.  Then the glue, inlays and clamp up.  After is it cured I true up the block to the diminsions I want it to be and start shaping the riser block to fit the form.  After fighting the preshaped riser I just couldn't control the tolerances well enough.

[KellyG]

Man another one for me to keep my eye on. How is a fella suppose to get any work done if he has to Keep checking on these bows. looks great!

[Robertfishes]

one of the tips I got from KennyM was to pin the pieces together using toothpicks.. once I have everything sanded and fitted I do a dry run and while the top/bottom clamps are on I draw the rough riser shape and a couple of pencil lines top to bottom so I re-assemble parts correctly during glue up... I then drill 4 or more tooth pick sized holes in areas that will be cut out anyway..then during glue up I slide the tooth picks into the predrilled holes and clamp away..Kenny posted this with pics about a year ago,I think he only used one hole on each end..I like at least 2  on each end cause if the toothpick breaks I have another clear hole..thanks Kenny for this great tip! The riser on the left has one beauty stripe and one on right has 2 strips of 3 pieces of 040 glass, thats why it has 4 toothpicks on each end  

[Pennsyltuckey pete]

Now that is a tip to put in the bowyers journal.  Thank you Both~!

now on to some lam work!

I got some eastern cedar from my brother.  LEft over from a closet project.



Cut to width



inital setup on the lam grinder!



a pile of this



means a pile of this!



I still have to do the tapers and take the last .030 off the cedar.  I will grind the cedar the day I do the layup so the wood stays as fresh as possible.

pete