Author Topic: Cutting Lam's  (Read 11295 times)

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Offline bowa

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #30 on: January 22, 2014, 06:22:28 am »
did i something wrong? If so, i don't understand what, because my english ;)
Nine out of ten voices in my head say I'm not crazy. The tenth hums the melody of Tetris.

Offline Buckeye Guy

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #31 on: January 22, 2014, 10:33:06 am »

I agree Mike it is not just about size and teeth but we have to start were we are at
I did not want to spend an hour typing about band saw setup and blade quality
I think Del as some idea of those things , thanks for a source for good blades

Exactly - so I let Del know that those aren't the only considerations and I gave him an expert contact who will be willing to talk to him at length about ALL the factors involved.
Surely this is better than just giving a quick answer? I'm only trying to help!


Mike
Thanks for your post , it was a good one !
My reply was to give you an answer for my short reply and not to say you are wrong for you were not . Thanks for your input the more we all input the more sure the answers will become .

Del
That sander is not my idea of a perfect sander for lams but will work fine for backing strips and with a little extra effort maybe we can get a few lams off of it
Need to go, talk some more,  maybe tomorrow
Guy
« Last Edit: January 22, 2014, 12:40:41 pm by Buckeye Guy »
Guy Dasher
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Offline willie

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #32 on: January 22, 2014, 12:56:55 pm »
bowa

nothing wrong that I can see.

sometimes too many quotes inside other quotes gets confusing.

Offline Marc St Louis

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #33 on: January 22, 2014, 01:13:39 pm »
sometimes too many quotes inside other quotes gets confusing.

Indeed. 

Some people need to make sure that their replies start after the very last bracketed quote and not inside the quote
Home of heat-treating, Corbeil, On.  Canada

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Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #34 on: January 22, 2014, 06:46:39 pm »
  Del, I cut a 1/2 dozen backing strips this morning on my bandsaw. I use the cheap 1/2 blase with 3 or 4 teeth, the fewer teeth the better. Before you start carefully adjust your saw and make sure the blade is running down the center of the top pulley. Many saws even when perfectly adjusted still require finding the angle of drift for a better quality of cut. Very easy to do. Draw a line of a cheap piece of wood and start pushing it through your saw following the line, when you have run about 4 or 5 inches straight hold your wood still and turn off the saw. Now look and see what angle you are holding the board. If it is perfectly straight your fence will work fine, if not they adjust your fence to the same angle you were holding the board. It will increase your feed time and greatly improve the quality of your cut. But finding the blade angle will effect the cut quality substantially.

I second this to Jupiter and back, and also Adams post as well. For my preference, tablesaws are loud and dangerous, and if your gonna be doing it a lot, a bandsaw is the way to go. Haven't been doing this as long as some, I am just seconding the experiences of the more experienced on here. I use a woodslicer blade, it is a thin kerf 1/2" blade, my bandsaw is a 14" grizzly. I recently bought a 3/4" carbide resaw king, and I still prefer the woodslicer way more. I think I can't get the resaw king tensioned enough maybe. I also will recommend to definitely use a feather board, or something to keep the wood close to the fence. I make a feather board out of wood, they work great, a lot better than trying to hold the wood against the fence while your guiding. With a good woodslicer blade, if you can find the blade angle and set your fence to it (you can also clamp a wooden fence and wedge it to your normal fence if your fence doesn't adjust), you can get a cut quality good enough to glue up. I still like to sand with 80 grit though to help the glue up lams stick together.
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #35 on: January 22, 2014, 06:52:00 pm »
As this is all just armchair bowmaking at the moment, so it includes making my own thickness sander or adapting my belt sander ;D.
In reality I've got to sort out my Yew staves that aren't suitable for longbows and plan what I actually want to do.
A friend gave me some Hickory backing lams... and I'm sort of thinking flight longbow, Hick' backed Yew.
I got over 300 yards last year... so 350 would be nice :o
I have ideas for crossbow prods too and bows with highly angled levers etc.
Like most of us I expect I have more ideas than time!
I'm trying to avoid wasting timber, hence the question. Next time I order any bandsaw blades I'll get a nice wide one. I'll also examine my belt sander to see if it will lend itself to being bodified to work as a thickness sander.
I've got an old electric planer too, maybe that could be modified as a thicknesser or sander. Once I've worked out how to cut parallel lams I'll have a look at making some tapered ones.
At the moment everyone wants self Yew warbows, which would be fine if I had the wood, but I don't!
I want to spend some time making the bows I want to experiment with. Mostly I'm into self bows, but we just gotta try everything haven't we?  :laugh:
Not much room in my workshop either... and I don't think Mrs Cat :-* will let me bring the woodworking indoors :(
Del

Hey, Del... try hard maple backed yew... it makes some amazing warbows. I've used this combo up to 120#. I have made some with hickory backing, but I was getting more set.

I have been getting less set on my maple backed bows compared to hickory or bamboo bows too. After about 15 bows maybe (maybe 12 or so) I am really thinking this maple I got has more spring back than other woods, at least in backing form.
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline Badger

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #36 on: January 22, 2014, 07:06:15 pm »
  Knots, that extra spring back you are feeling is less damaged wood in the belly I am pretty sure. Maple has a bit more elasticity than hickory and makes a big difference in the condition of the belly wood. Last few weeks I have been working with hickory over osage, several tropicals, and cherry. The maple bows have been taking less set and performing better than the hickory backed. Chrono is broken but I can tell the difference in the sound when the arrow hits the target.

Offline adb

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #37 on: January 22, 2014, 08:29:46 pm »
I think hickory is a bit over powering for most belly wood, except maybe ipe. The maple backed yew bows I've made seem to be better (gasp!) than a yew selfbow. I've been a big fan of hard maple as a backing for a long time.

Offline toomanyknots

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #38 on: January 22, 2014, 08:57:30 pm »
And maple's lighter too, as a bonus!  :)
"The way of heaven is like the bending of a bow-
 the upper part is pressed down,
 the lower part is raised up,
 the part that has too much is reduced,
 the part that has too little is increased."

- Tao Te Ching, 77, A new translation by Victor H. Mair

Offline Buckeye Guy

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #39 on: January 22, 2014, 09:09:27 pm »
Del
how wide is your belt on the sander?
looks like at least four inches
so we should be able to split them down in width
that would provide table surface on each side of the belt to run a sled
Then build a sled that resembles a H beam, the edges of the H can slide on the table on each side of the belt and the lam can be double side taped to the bottom of the web
a couple of passes and it will be sanded to the thickness of the space between the web and the sand paper . You can do straight or tapered by how you set the web of the H beam, be sure to get the sides the same or you will have side to side taper.
make the sides tall enough that you can cut some hand holds in them to give you more control , we don't want you to accidentally tip it or you may get a dip from the wheel on the end gouging in. Making the beam longer than you think you will need will be some help with preventing tipping , just don't want to be to long to handle. Good thing is most lams get spliced at the handle.
Well like I said not the perfect machine to do them on but doable
have fun
hope some of what I said makes sense
Guy
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Offline Del the cat

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Re: Cutting Lam's
« Reply #40 on: January 23, 2014, 04:05:11 am »
Cunning idea Buckeye :)
There are so many good ideas here I'm going to have to get out my armchair soon ;)
Actually once I've I've had my tea and toast, it's out to the garage to put a roughed out Yew Warbow up on the tiller....  :laugh:
Del
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