Black locust static recurve build along

[lebhuntfish]

That's the Kyle I know  . . . stave to floor tillered in a day!   

Yep,  and he will have it shooting tomorrow and the finish done in a day or two.

Patrick

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I can see what I can do about getting some pictures of my setup. It's pretty simple really. It was initially setup to hold a bench use in the bed of my truck at about chest level for while I was at school. I took it out and was too lazy to put it back in the truck. So Ive been working with it on the ground. It works fine but your on your knees using them to hold the vise mount in place while hogging away.

I was hoping the wood was a bit more dry so I could've got it braced up, but I was a little worried about bracing it as green as it is. I have about 2.5-3 hours into it at this point. So it's going pretty quick, but progress is going to slow down a bit while I wait for it to dry and get the bending done. It's probable I couldVe had it shooting that day if I started with some dry wood. But you cant crank out all of them in a day.

I'm thinking about deflexing at the fades to get the hooks just below the handle then reflexing midlimb to get the tips about an inch above the handle. Hopefully after all that the tips will end up level with the back of the handle. Then once the curving is done I'll work on lining up everything.

Kyle

[mikekeswick]

My fastest ever bows were r/d recurves from b.locust. Do it you won't be disappointed!

[loon]

My fastest ever bows were r/d recurves from b.locust. Do it you won't be disappointed!

Not the Turkish bows? 

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I'm finally getting back to it after giving the bow a good spell to dry out inside. It dropped about 10 grams of moisture. And classes starting back up finally has eaten up a bit of time, but I gave this weekend free to get a little work done. The plan today is to get it worked down to a reasonable thickness by getting it beaced up and worked back to about 12" draw. Then I'll start with all the bendi work IThe some pics at every step. If there are any pictures in particular anyone wants to see or better description of what I'm doing, let me know. The first two pictures are of my portable vise set up. It's intended to fit in the bed of my truck and get the code up to about diaphragm level. The last is today's pic of my fat girl about to shed and hopefully giver another now backing thatight be used on this one if it comes off in one piece. She's about 36" long and almost as thick as a 16oz bottle of TB3 at the moment.

Kyle

[ajooter]

Your able to use shed skins as backing?  What kind of glue do you use?

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I did it for the first time on this years trade bow, I moistens the skin by putting in in a plastic tote with damp paper towels, split the back from belly side. I glued it on with TB3, it worked pretty good and smoothly. I kept my finger wet while I pushed out the excess glue. Even for just a shed those Python skins are pretty tough when moist. When dry you could barely tell the pattern the snake had before, but it did add a neat looking scale patern since the scale pockets act like holders for little glue bubbles giving a texture and scale appearance

Kyle

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I got it braced up to 6" to the back and pulled back to about 10". Which right now it's pulling about 30# at 10#. So close enough to start doing some bending. I've gotta thin down the tips a bit so they can be smoothly bent into shape. The tiller might not be perfect at the moment, but I figure that between bending and heat treating it will shift a bit. So for now close enough, I can correct it later.

Kyle

[ajooter]

Didn't the tb glue leave a yellow hue underneath though?  Do you have a pic of the back of your trade bow I do that remember seeing it?

Sorry if I'm hijacking buddy!

[Mo_coon-catcher]

It's not a problem at all. I don't have a picture in my phone any more. I ran out of space and had to clear a bunch of stuff. It did leave a little bit of a yellow hue, but it was on black licust so it had a slight tinge of yellow in the tan anyway. As log as this one decides to hold up until the end, I'll back it with some sheds to give a good look at how I did it.

I got one hook bent. The bow slipped a bit when I cranked down the first clamp, so it's a bit less than the 85-90* I was hoping for, but still more than enough to make a recurve. It made a decently smooth bend and only tried to crack and buckle in one spot. But a clamp and a little more heat around it and everything worked out fine. The crack went maybe 1/16" deep. I steamed it using a veggie oil, wet rag, foil, and a heat gun. After steaming it for a while I slapped it on the jig and kept the heat gun on it for extra heat to get it to bend around. I've done it this way a couple of times and it seems to work well.

Kyle

[Danzn Bar]

look'n good!  my kind of bends
DBar

[Mo_coon-catcher]

Just removed the clamps, I think this is an acceptable amount of springback.

Kyle

[bradsmith2010]

that looks great,,

[FilipT]

What if you used just heat gun? What would be procedure and could you do it?

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I'm sure it can be done with just a heat gun on it's own if you can let the heat sink through the wood without burning it. For me it's more safe to use steam on a tight radius like that. The furthest I've been able to take black locust with just dry heat was about 45* before it starts to crack. I'm not all that patient though to allow the heat to properly sink in. With the foil and wet rag I can put the heat gun apat right in the foil and get that water steaming in just a few moments.

I did get a bitore bending done before it turned dark on me. The other hook cake out almost the same as the first. It did crack a bit more than the first one, but nothing that can't be cleaned up to work fine. Then I got some deflex heated in, I havnt pulled the clamp off yet to see what it held. It did takes some finagling to get an even deflex on both limbs, one was being a bit more stuff than the other, is I put a leather shim under the softer limb by the handle, so that as I cranked down the clamp the bow would rotate a bit and force the more stiff limb to bend more and the weaker limb to stop bending.i got then close enough to even to make me happy. But today's goal is to reflex the midlimbs back to bring the tips ahead of the handle again, essentially back to where they were. That way it will essentially be a reflex/deflex with hooks at the tips. No idea if the reflex deflex with help or hurt, but it sure will make a neat looking recurve.

Kyle