2023 bow trade - BUILD IN PROGRESS

[superdav95]

Got it roughed out to basic rough shape with drawknife.  The Color on the sapwood is a caremel Color.  The rings are good and tight and the heartwood has a rich reddish brown Color.  I’ll do some more thinning out and shaping to floor tiller before I get to taking and twist minor as it is and any remaining alignment issues.  Here’s a few more pics.

[Muskyman]

I’m gonna be watching this one Dave. Want to see how you handle a few things with this yew stave

[superdav95]

String alignment time!   Here’s my fix for this issue.  Hopefully.  I like to correct just a hair past the direction I’m wanting to go with yew especially.  I find it springs back more then other woods.  I use a string as can be seen in the pics and heat up he handle area (on this particular bow).  I just use a heat gun and heat it up in handle area and let it cool.  It may need another heat session but hopefully not.  It seemed like a fairly straight piece of wood but when shaping and laying out the bow the grain had other plans.  No matter this should work fine.  Fingers crossed. 

[superdav95]

Got tips aligned good and got it bending evenly to 23” at 50lbs.  This was before adding any reflex to the limbs and flipping the tips.  I will throw back on tiller tree tomorrow after leaving it clamped and heated in reflex cools overnight.  Here’s my reflex form for this one.  My goal for this bow will be around 50lbs at 25” draw.  Things went well so far.  We shall see how it progresses. 

[PEARL DRUMS]

You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess I expected more, Dave.

[superdav95]

You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess I expected more, Dave.

Lol.  Too funny.  Thanks PD,  my wife says I’m the worst kind of ocd.  Not the neat and tidy kind. 🌝.  Every once in a while I’ll tidy up a bit as it’s too much chaos even for me. 

[superdav95]

Here the bow out of its form this morning.  No surprises. All looks good and alignment is corrected.  The only thing I am not sure about is the Color of my sapwood.  Like I mentioned earlier it’s a caremel Color.  You can see the two tones that are predominantly dispersed throughout the entire back.  I’ve made efforts to carefully card scrape down to a single sap ring which is next to impossible and still a Color variance.  Is this a concern beyond aesthetics??? Anyone ever see this before?  This is my first encounter with this much. In the past I’ve have the odd spot with this sort of thing but usually able to scrape down a bit to remove most of it.  Open so suggestions here.  Should I just leave it and carry on with it or is this a performance issue?   Thanks

[Kidder]

Gonna be awesome! Nice work Dave!

[PEARL DRUMS]

You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess I expected more, Dave.

Lol.  Too funny.  Thanks PD,  my wife says I’m the worst kind of ocd.  Not the neat and tidy kind. 🌝.  Every once in a while I’ll tidy up a bit as it’s too much chaos even for me. 

Mi exactly the same. I'm OCD when it comes to prying a bow from a stave. I have a one track mind and nothing else around me matters until I'm holding a complete bow. Tools and wood curls everywhere.

[superdav95]

You're work is exceptionally clean and your shop in a dang mess I expected more, Dave.

Lol.  Too funny.  Thanks PD,  my wife says I’m the worst kind of ocd.  Not the neat and tidy kind. 🌝.  Every once in a while I’ll tidy up a bit as it’s too much chaos even for me. 

Mi exactly the same. I'm OCD when it comes to prying a bow from a stave. I have a one track mind and nothing else around me matters until I'm holding a complete bow. Tools and wood curls everywhere.

So true!  My wife has to force feed me basically as I get hyper focused sometimes in what I’m doing I forget to eat.  It’s a good thing she’s around or might starve.  Lol

[superdav95]

I took down a couple more layers off the sapwood to clean things up a bit and little better on the Color.  Still has a little caremel Color.  It’s now at 50lbs at 15” draw.  I had taken most of the deflex out of the limbs and flipped the tips with longer sweeping recurves.  Still have some scraping to do off the belly to get the weight down.  Bend still looks good just too heavy yet.  The last two pics show a couple clusters of small knots at the edge.  I left a few layers of sapwood around them in hopes to prevent future issues. 

[superdav95]

Got this bow drawn to 25” today and bend looking good.  It’s at 53lbs at this moment at 25”.  I’m going to keep it there, sand it and finish her up.  It should finish fairly close to 50lbs when all done I figure.  Tips lined up very nicely considering.   It took a tiny bit of set but very respectable.  I was toying around with an idea of staining the back possibly and then exposing some of the lighter sapwood with some lite scrapes.  I’ll put in a shelf and shape up the handle in prep for a leather wrap.  I put Buffalo horn tip overlays on this one.  I think I’ll use a d97 string for this bow should work well. 

[superdav95]

Few more. 

[airkah]

I am so amazed and envious of how fast you make new bows Dave! I feel like evwry week I see a new beautiful bow of yours! Can't wait until I get to see this one all finished up! Whoever gets one of your bows in this trade is going to be a lucky guy. 

[Jakesnyder]

I guess I am behind... here's the stave and my plan .
I'm using some dense hickory and am going to do a shorter slight bend through the handle design. I'm going to do some work on it this weekend.