making wood backing strips with hand tools

[scp]

Has anyone here made wood backing strips using only hand tools? How did the Japanese bowyers make their laminated bows with hand tools?

[PatM]

The right hand tools can do all the things machines can, it just takes longer. Splitting and planing scraping etc.

[islandpiper]

Patience, Grasshopper.


OK, seriously, you can make ANYTHING by hand that you can make on a machine.  However, handwork often demands better, more uniform material to start with.  Hand planing and scraping works best with the best wood.  Less uniform wood can be power planed.....with some success, and the least uniform wood is best power sanded.  Some fellows use only the best wood.   Myself, I take pride in making bows out of some real strange stuff, and by "listening" to what the wood demands, still ending up with a bow that works. What that means is that a blue-print design, even if made by a world famous bowyer may not work on ANY INDIVIDUAL STICK.  

Either way.....patience is the answer, and if using nothing but hand tools, then the first tool you need is a large chunk of time.  

piper

[radius]

google "hera leatherwall" and you'll see amazing buildalongs by a guy from asia who uses almost entirely hand tools.  He turns out bolt-on recurves, and laminates the risers with strips made just like you want to do.  Yours would have to be longer, and take hours, but you can do it.  Check that guy out.

[scp]

google "hera leatherwall" and you'll see amazing buildalongs by a guy from asia who uses almost entirely hand tools.  He turns out bolt-on recurves, and laminates the risers with strips made just like you want to do.  Yours would have to be longer, and take hours, but you can do it.  Check that guy out.

Thanks. He is quite a craftman. But he appears to be using a belt sander.

I'm interested in making a primitive self bow with perry reflex backing. As an experiment, I would bandsaw the back off an ELB style bow which was intentionally made too narrow for the wood that is chestnut oak. I wonder how much reflex can be induced safely when I glue it back. Later I would try to split a floor tilered bow with hand tools. What would be the best way to do that?

[MaceG]

Are you talking about cutting the back off a floor tillered stave and gluing it back to the same stave to induce reflex? Might work, if the stave's thick enough.
Backing a bow with it's own back. Sounds pretty cool.

[Del the cat]

I made an underweight Maple flat bow early this year, I thinned it down to become the tapered core for an Asiatic recurve (f/glass back and belly)
I basically measured the thickess at about 6" intervals with a vernier and worked it down in those areas using a rasp/file. I then blended the areas together.
Holding it up to the light the jaws of the vernier gave a good visual check as I slid it up and down the limb, I could watch the gap slowly icrease as I moved down the limb.
It was less painstaking than I'd expected.
I actually did it twice as it was too powerful initially.
Here's a link to a blog I did on it. http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/8680
Del

[Marc St Louis]

I have made a few bows that were de-crowned by hand and then backed with a backing strip that was mostly worked down by hand.  De-crowning the stave is not a problem but for the backing strip you need a flat surface to support the strip yet still allow access to it with hand tools.  A straight 2X4 clamped into a vise works well for that

[scp]

I have made a few bows that were de-crowned by hand and then backed with a backing strip that was mostly worked down by hand.  De-crowning the stave is not a problem but for the backing strip you need a flat surface to support the strip yet still allow access to it with hand tools.  A straight 2X4 clamped into a vise works well for that

How did you split the wood long enough to make a backing strip? Did you use a froe?

[Tom Leemans]

I have prepared bamboo backing entirely with hand tools before. A block plane, hoof rasp, and toothing plane and some patience can go a long way.

[VenomBOWslinger]

One thing to keep in mind this is a primitive site and as far as I know the ancients were not using anything made by makita or delta...lol piper said it well time will be the biggest factor, patience and know how...if u dont have all of these expect alot of what ur doing to fail!  Sometimes trial and error will work eventually through studying learning and growing ur craft will pay off!  Good luck and post some pics of what ur trying to accomplish!

Venom

[The Gopher]

i'd check the auction sites for a older #7 stanley jointer plane, this is a giant of a handplane about 22" long, but its called a jointer for a reason, its what was used to flatten long boards for "jointing" before power jointers existed.

[scp]

Is it possible that the Japanese Yumi bow is Perry reflexed?
It appears that we can make bamboo backed Perry reflex bows
even with primitive hand tools.

I make flat self bows out of white woods I have at home;
chestnut oak, red oak, birch, and maple. Mainly for exercise.
A couple of dozen started, several shootable. none finished.
I thought I might be able to make ELB style bows if I self back
the white woods I have.