Filling a slot

[DC]

I have to fill this slot. Do any of you woodworking gurus have a slick method of making a piece that will fit? It started out as an 1/8" saw kerf. Ocean Spray just opens up like a clam

[PatM]

Yes. Cut a piece and shape it so it fits. 

[alwayslookin]

Fiberglass it I'm kidding guys don't shoot me

[Del the cat]

Is it in a grip section? If so you can shape a piece for an ok fit and use a gap filling glue or a glue with sawdust to fill the gaps then make it flat and put a clean overlay over it.
Del

[DC]

Yes. Cut a piece and shape it so it fits. 

Pat-Now why didn't I think of that

Always- Bondo has crossed my mind


Del- yes it's the grip so most of it doesn't matter,it will be covered. It's just the fades that will show and that's the toughest part to fit. But you said overlay. Didn't someone just recently use veneer from the fades out a ways? If I soaked the veneer and then wrapped it tight until it dried maybe it would make an accent that would cover the crap. I'm going to have to use whatever method I come up with on most of my OS bows because splitting the handle is the safest way I've found to dry OS.
Thanks guys I now have a direction.
Don

[Aries]

I bet you could  flatten the whole section and use multiple lams over the handle to build it back up rigid,  I would use a pretty contrasting wood like osage or an exotic layered in with a matching ocean spray piece to tie it all together. 
Good luck!

[wizardgoat]

I've had 2 ocean spray bows do that, I just made sure it didn't bend and left it. I built up the handle, wrapped tight with hemp, saturated in glue, then did a leather handle wrap. Seems to be holding up

[Drewster]

DC, it appears you may have cut that slot in your handle with your table saw.  If you do have one, angle the blade and rip a wedge shape piece of wood to fit the slot.  You can keep adjusting the blade angle until you get a good fit then glue it in.  Should make a strong handle.  Looks like the slot is only 3/4" or so wide.  Go for it!

[vtbow]

To me it looks like the right side is convex, which is a little harder to make a plug for. than just a straight wedge. Maybe it's an optical illusion in the photo. But if it's real, you can fit a plug by chalking up the place it has to fit in and rubbing the plug blank against it. The chalk will transfer to the areas on the plug that need to be cut back, Whittle that marked high spot off the plug with a knife, gouge, or sharp chisel, as needed, and try again, Keep taking off the high spots until you have a good fit.

Since this is a wedge shape it's tough to do both sides the same way when one is convex. In that case just fit the right side and don't worry about the left. Once the right side fits the wedge will likely have a gap on the left. However that left side looks straight, so it's easy to make up a wedge for that side to fill the gap betwen the right side plug and the left side. You'll end up with two wedge shaped plugs, but they should fit really well, in fact the right side will probably lock in place when the left wedge is driven home. Hope that helps.

[half eye]

vtbow,
     There is a lot ways to fill the hole you have....all involve a lot of hand fitting. There is another way however. Use either a round nose bit in your router (small bridge blocks either side of the handle to support the router table) and then insert the appropriate size dowel.....or use a cylinder bit to make a flat bottomed slot and glue in the appropriate size of "square lumber"...in either case use the small blocks and glueing in the fillers will be very straight forward.

Make the slot easy to fill
rich

[Jim Davis]

Easiest of all, just flatten the whole section down to the bottom of the "crack" and glue on a handle. Folks do it with boards all the time. Why make things difficult?

Jim Davis

[duke3192]

Why did you split the handle

[DavidV]

I'm afraid if you glued anything in there it would just crack at the glue line again. Wood shrinks radially. The crack doesn't look like it goes very deep, can't you plane it down and glue on a handle like Jim said?

[bow101]

You showed me one before that you filled in.   I have dried numerous saplings the old fashioned way never had any splitting. 

[DC]

OS is really tough to dry-it checks like mad. The way I've found to avoid most of the problems is to rough out the bow on the bandsaw. I cut both limbs to the pith(center) leaving the handle full round. If left like that the handle "will" split and not where you want it. To sort of control it I make a saw kerf to the pith along the length of the handle. The stave will then dry with no checking but the handle kerf opens up like a clam. To true up the resulting wedge shaped slot I make a wedge about the same angle and glue a piece of 50 grit sanding belt to it. I scrub that back and forth until both sides are true. Amazingly it doesn't take long, especially considering how hard OS is. That got me to the previous picture. I snipped away at a piece of cardboard til it fit nicely in the slot. Took the cardboard to the tablesaw and fiddled with it til it looked like I had the angle right. Cut the wedge and trial fit it. Ground away at it on the belt sander til it was close. I didn't have any carbon paper so I scribbled all over a piece of paper with a soft pencil. Put the paper in the slot and slid the wedge back and forth to mark the high spots. Sanded the high spots and refit til I was happy(ish). Then I epoxied it together. This is the result. I'm pretty happy with it. I still may try to cover it with veneer.

To those that thought I should grind it flat. I've tried that twice and both times the riser popped off. This may be because OS staves are small, 2" is a big one. By the time you have flattened it out there is not much thickness difference between limb and riser. Either that or my glue joints suck.

Anyway, the insert