This has been a really fun project, a couple firsts for me and I'm happy with the progress so far. This is the first time making a take down, first time working with billets, first tip using a knife to scrape for final tillering.
Wood: Chokecherry
Draw weight: 38# 43#
Length: 67" 65" (cut down to get a few more lbs and better cast)
Limb profile: Parallel for the first 6" of limb, then tapers to the tips.
Limb width at fades: 1-3/4"
Limb thickness at fades: about 0.72"
Limb width at tip: about 1/2"
Limb thickness at tip: about 0.55"
First set of photos shows the limbs roughed out and fitted with sleeves. I made the sleeves from thick wall stainless steel pipe for the outer, and thin wall chromed pipe of some kind(its springy, might be a shower rod). The outer thick walled pipe was much for my bench vise, it almost broke it, but I got a slight oval shape. The limbs are glued in with gorilla glue, two part epoxy. Couple notes about fitting and glueing; first, it is super important to align the limbs and check them while glueing. Second, it is also very important not to glue the sleeves together. To accomplish this, I test fit everything multiple times and planned out my glue procedure.
1. Glueing inner sleeve
I glued the inner sleeve to its limb first. This had to be done while the inner sleeve was fitted inside of the outter sleeve since the inner one was springy and wanted to expand outward. This actually worked out really well because it expanded inside and fit itself to the inside of the outter sleeve. To keep the two sleeves from glueing together I coated the inside of the outter sleeve first with car wax(turtle wax), then by spraying with pam. I had not issue with the two sticking together.
2. Glueing the outter sleeve
The first thing I had to do was clean all the pam and turtle wax off, so I cleaned it really good with brake parts cleaner. the next part was pretty straight forward, just insert the limb into the sleeve. I had a clamp and string ready to check the limb alignment, which also required carefully inserting the inner sleeve/limb into the outter sleeve(just not all the way, and inner sleeve coated with wax and pam). With the alignment checked and expoxy hardened, I let them sit to cure for 24 hours.
