Well, back again here. Had some trouble with the uploads to photobucket, not sure was it my account or the server broke down …. anyway here we go on
ERC is incredible light wood and very soft, it should have a backing. I will do a sinew backing on both. First some cleaning up, a rough ring choosing, some side cleaning to taper the width and at least reducing the thickness on some parts.
dad's back
mom's back
There weren’t much to play with and the staves determined more or less the layout. This cleaning up was made very roughly and did last no longer than 10 min per stave.
I like to have some short flipped tips, or short statics on bows that short. I steamed in a little bend on both staves. Here they are laying side by side, from left to right: mom, dad, two plains bows with already the first layers on and an indian hornbow which needs some more sinew on one limb. The two ERC staves were carefully prepared with acetone and three coats of thinned hide glue.
I will go for pin nocks, but this soft wood has to be strengthened with bone horn or at least rawhide/sinew. I found some horn leftovers, only 1-2mm thick – that’s enough.
Forgot to take a pic of applying the little horn plates.
Next was the sinew job, sorry no pics from the process. Sticky glue on my rubber gloves and taking pics makes some trouble.
Both are now braced backwards with a cord and an old broken arrow or a stick while seasoning.
The cord will get slack in some time, then I replace the stick with a longer one.
But here is the result; I’m very satisfied how they came out. The sinew is worked around the hole and the remaining branch.
Now I will let the backing cure a bit and then wrap the tips and the handle with sinew. I think one layer is enough for that light wood. I will do pics from that process, but then comes the patience part … I will continue in early November or so.
