?'s on finishing a rawhide backed bow

[ajbruggink]

Heh guys,

I made my first successful rawhide backed bow last week and I am ready to begin finishing it but I had a question about sanding a rawhide backed bow. Do you sand the rawhide back just like you would with the back of a selfbow or do you leave it alone? I am staining scraps off the bow, cut off tips (because I shortened the bow to get to the draw weight I wanted), to see how the rawhide would take stain (its not working well so far) and I did sand the rawhide on those scraps and it worked okay but I wanted to know if this is how its done and on these scraps I sanded with 60, 80, 120, 180, and 220 grit sandpaper, usually I went further when sanding a bow, up to 600 grit. Your replies and advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Aaron

[ajooter]

I use goat rawhide and it's pretty thin to begin with.  When applied to the bow it's almost translucent. I usually only sand the edges where it stops on the side of the limbs.


Stain looks great on rawhide.  I usually paint mine in some fashion but staining looks great too!
Painted

Stained

[bradsmith2010]

you can sand it, it is tough,, you can put some finish and sand more and put more finish  till it looks like you want,, leather dye might work better than stain,, if you don't like the stain, or dye,, you can sand again and paint it,, it is very versatile,, I have one now that is natural with tung oil finish and the paste wax over that,,, poly looks nice on rawhide too,,

[Limbit]

Ajooter, that is one great looking paint job!Ｉam stealing your design for my next bow.

[ajbruggink]

Thanks for the replies. I bought some leather dye today and I'm going to try it on one piece of scrap to see if it works betters than the Minwaz oil based stain that I've been using.