Building the Vine Maple Bow - Finished

[Gordon]

After rubbing down the bow with the fine grit wool I will use powdered pumice to achieve that ultra-satin look. I begin by mixing some of the medium course pumice stone with vegetable oil and stirring it into a slurry.





I apply the pumice/oil slurry onto the bow with a clean cloth and rub it carefully into the finish. I then wipe off all of the pumice/oil material from the bow with a soft clean cloth.





I repeat the above process using fine pumice stone. When I am done, the finish will literally glow.





Next up - making a leather handle wrap

[DC]

Thanks for this Gordon. When you mix up the dye are you just making a 1 or 2 # cut shellac and putting dye in it or is it even thinner than that?

And thanks for the mineral spirits idea. I will be trying that today.

[Gordon]

Hey DC, I make the shellac mix a little on the thin side for this application.

[vinemaplebows]

Nice work Gordon, never seen the gel topcoat before interesting...

[Gordon]

Now I am going to fashion a leather handle for the bow. The photo below shows the tools and materials that I will use.



I begin by cutting a rectangular piece of tanned elk leather 4 inches by 4 1/2 inches. The handle will be 4 inches long. Leather has a directional grain which you can determine by stretching it. The leather will stretch more one way than the other. You want to orient the grain so you will get a minimal amount of stretch while pulling together the edges with the lacing. I use a square to make sure that I cut the edges perfectly square.





I wrap the leather around the handle with the 4 inch edge parallel to the bow.  I pull the edge to be laced tight at the top and make a mark.



I do the same for the middle and bottom of the handle.

[Gordon]

I line the marks up with a French curve and cut off the excess leather. I will repeat the previous steps and make my marks on the opposite edge if I still need to fine tune the fit.





I use a 3 prong 1/16" leather thonging chisel to make an equal number of lacing holes along each edge -  19 holes for this handle.

[Gordon]

I also cut an arrow pass from a piece of the same leather. I make the pass 1/2" x 1 1/2" and use a plate as my guide while making the cut with a sharp Exacto blade.





I dye the handle leather and arrow pass with tan leather dye. I make sure that I also dye any exposed edges.

[Gordon]

I wrap the leather around the handle and mark the location of the arrow rest. I then spread some barge cement on the area of the handle that will contact the arrow rest and the arrow rest itself.







While the cement is curing I cut a 3 foot length of 1/16" leather lacing and attach lacing needles to each end.



I let the cement cure for about 15 minutes. I fit the leather onto the handle and press the leather into the arrow rest letting the contact cement do its work.

[Gordon]

Because I have an uneven number of holes (19) on an edge I start the lacing with a horizontal stitch rather than a cross stitch.





I thread each end of the lacing to the next hole on the opposing side. The lacing will cross itself underneath the leather when done.







I then thread each end of the lacing though the next hole on the opposing side while crossing the lacing over the top of the leather.

[Gordon]

I repeat the previous steps until I reach the bottom of the handle.







When the lacing is done, I put a drop of superglue underneath the final stitch to fix it and trim the excess lace.





After the handle is laced I glue on the arrow pass using thick superglue

[Gordon]

I like to put a finish on my handles as it repeals water and keeps the handle from getting grimy. I use a product called Clear-Lac which is used for finishing leather saddles.





After applying the leather finish I let the handle cure overnight. I clean my brush with a 50/50 mix of lacquer thinner and acetone.

[Gordon]

And here is the finished bow.  It is 62" ntn and pulls 45# @ 27".  It's a pretty lively little bow and will make a fine weapon for deer hunting or just plinking around at the 3D range. Thank you for following along and I hope you enjoyed it!

[DC]

Thank you very much Gordon!! Very nice bow

[Weylin]

Nice looking bow, Gordon. I learned some good ideas from reading through that. Thanks for taking the time. These things aren't easy to do and you do them very well.

[wizardgoat]

Gordon, I wouldn't be building the bows I build if it weren't for your build alongs.
It's always cool to see how the "masters" do things, you sure have an eye for finish and detail.
I appreciate how you take no short cuts in your builds, and make each bow special.
Thanks for taking the time to do this, I know it must take a lot of time, consciously stopping what you doing to take photos, so cheers!