Continuing Roughing Out
Once I took as much wood off with the hatchet as I was comfortable, I clamped the stave in my vise and switched to the drawknife.
I carefully reduces the width of the stave to just under the lines, so about 2.25" wide. I also reduced the thickness of the limbs to about 3/4" and started the general shape of the fades.
I didn't want to remove too much wood with the drawknife because it would have a tendency to want to gouge out large chunks if I wasn't careful. So, I quickly moved on to...
Roughing Out With Surform
...using the Surform! I LOVE using the surform to remove lots of wood safely. A quick note: I broke the original blade and had to buy a replacement. I bought the only one I could find locally (at Ace) and shortly after realized it was a "fine cut" blade. Dumb mistake on my part, but I now realize the benefit of having multiple blades for a surform, sort of like having multiple grits of sandpaper.
With the surform I got the limbs to 2" wide their full length. I also started shaping the handle. This was a mistake. Why?
String Bisecting the Handle
One important step of bow layout is getting the string to bisect the handle. What I do is take a long tillering string and clamp it to the center of one tip of the bow, then pull it to the center of the other tip. Note where the string rests in relation to the handle. Ideally, the string should be laying smack dab in the middle of the handle. With a narrowed handle flatbow, it is easy to move the handle to aid this string alignment, but I had already started to shape the handle. Luckily the handle was still over 1.5 inches wide, so I still had room to play with, but this could have required an extra step of heat bending the wood later.
Finishing Front Profile
So I have the string alignment issue cleared up, so it is time to finish the front profile. I measure half way between the limb tip and handle fade-out and make a mark. From this mark I start the limb taper to 1/2" tips. Remember that the taper must follow the grain. For this piece of wood that means there are a few curves, but nothing too drastic. I used the surform to taper the limbs and the rounded side of a wood rasp to work on the handle and fades. I left the handle 1.25" wide so I still have a little room to tweak it. With these stiff handled bows, you don't have to narrow the handle at all until the bow is tillered, I just did it this way because that's what I'm used to doing.
Marking Side Thickness
To get things started on the thickness of the limbs, I used a speed square and pencil and marked 5/8" from the back along the sides of the limb. Once all the lines were made, I clamped the bow in the vice (belly up), and started to thin the limbs using the surform.
With these parallel width limbs, you will need to taper thickness to get the correct tiller shape, so I marked the tips 1/2" thick and tapered that thickness to the fade-outs (which were 5/8" thick).
At this point, the limbs are barely bending, so more wood will need to be removed. The important thing is, I have close to the correct taper and an even thickness taper in both limbs.
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I really wish I had some photos since I could write a lot less and make a lot more sense with their help.
I'll keep updating as I get work done.
Thanks for looking!
