Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long

[Weylin]

I'm honing in on full draw. Once I get the bow braced and start tillering in earnest I try to keep the bow cleaned up as i go along. I don't like lots of gouges and tool marks especially as I'm getting to my final draw length. I don't want any surprises in the tiller as I try to erase deep tool marks. So as I get close I pay some extra attentions to the sides and the edges making sure that they are consistently rounded and smooth. Here is the bow being pulled to around 24-25".





When I get it about an inch from full draw I start sanding. I HATE sanding. It's hands down my least favorite step of the process but it's crucial to a nice finish. I have to play all kinds of mind tricks on myself to keep at it. I descend down through the grits all the way to 600 emery paper. All that sanding usually pushes me the final inch to full draw, if not I take a few careful scrapes and clean it up with sandpaper again on the belly. Here it is all sanded up in the sunlight. I put a single coat of shellac on after the sanding to seal under the handle area and just to help fill in the grain a bit. It gives me a little protection while I'm shooting it in as well.

[Arrowind]

+ 2 bow of awesomeness 


Very well done dude.  Thanks for doing this.

[Weylin]

Next step is to build up the back of the handle area. it completes the roundness of the bulbous style handle shape that I like. otherwise you have that little flat area on the back of the handle that doesn't quite fill up your hand right. It's a matter of aesthetics mainly. I used to use layers of rawhide to do this but I've found cork board to be much easier and quicker with the same effect. I break a piece off that's a little larger than I need and then super glue it onto the back of the handle.





With a file I round off the edges and blend them with the wood on the handle. I barely touch the wood and I'm careful not to cause any dings or big scratches in the wood especially where it might show past the handle wrap but the cork is so easy to work there's really no reason to dig into the wood at all.







Next I wrap the whole handle with braided fishing line. This smoothes out the transition between the cork and the wood to make it indistinguishable. It makes for a slightly more comfortable grip but once again is largely aesthetic. I have made bows without this step and they are fine but I like this process and usually use it. I'll let the pictures do the talking here. It's a straight forward wrapping technique. I keep it tight and close together.









To finish it I make a loop with a separate short piece of line. The loop faces the finishing end and I start wrapping over it several times.



Then I cut the main line and tuck the end through the loop.



I can then pull on the short string and the loop pulls the end back under about a 1/2" on the tight wrap, securing the end. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this technique or something similar just thought I'd share in case someone hadn't seen it.



Then you can pull it tight.



There's the pre-wrap all finished up. I run some thin super glue over it so that it is immobile.



This bow is ready to shoot. It is tillered to 60#@27". I met with the future owner at the range so he could shoot it in and see how the weight felt. We decided to take a few more scrapes off to lower the weight for optimal shooting. It's good that he decided that because I decided after watching it shoot that I wanted to weaken the top limb a hair to take some load off the bottom limb. It's always best to analyze the tiller when the bow is being drawn and shot as opposed to on the tree. They're just not the same.  Here he is shooting his bow. Sorry for missing full draw by a hair and getting it at a bad angle but you get the idea. I'll get better full draw pictures when I do the final photo shoot.

[Aaron H]

Great bow Weylin.  I'm sure the owner is very pleased.

[lesken2011]

Good stuff, Weylin. Thanks for spending the time.

[Peacebow_Coos]

Awesome deal, looking great Weylin.  Thanks for sharing.

[portlandfire]

   Beautiful bow and a very helpful build along.  Thank you.

[Markus]

Turned out very nice. Markus

[Weylin]

Ok, I have a horrible confession to make...    After I finished putting tru oil on this bow I got excited about finishing it and I went into it full throttle forgetting to take any pictures of the last stages. So unfortunately I can't show you what I did to polish the finish or put on the arrow rest and handlewrap. Here is a link to the finished pictures. If anyone has any questions about the last part I'm happy to answer them in detail. Sorry guys. 

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,52025.0.html