Well, after struggling with a bad case of a chest cold and a sinus infection, I got to cracking on my bow. Unfortunately, that's what happened as I was working on it (well, more like breaking than cracking). It's just a minor setback, as it was the core lam that broke on me as I was trying to form it into a recurve shape. I have more material to make another tapered core, but my problem right now is time. Work is starting to pile more onto my plate and the final orchestra concert of the year is looming. So instead of using the precious time I have now to try to get back to where I was on the trilam, I've decided to fall back on a more tried-and-true style for myself. Now, I do want to finish this trilam for my bow trade victim, but I know I can get a board bow bending within a few days time, so that's what I'll be working on now. I have some long overdue vacation coming at the end of May, so that's when I'll really focus on the trilam. But for now... here's some pictures of plan C!
I went to the local hardware store and saw this interesting piece of hickory. It was the straightest I could find, but it has an interesting pattern. There's a knot that disrupted the grain, so I couldn't just make an easy-peasy board bow without having one limb having a fair amount of runoff.
However, on either side of the knot, the grain straightened out long enough to get enough length for a proper sized limb plus some change for a splice.
So after cutting the limbs out and roughing out the limb profile, I spliced them together! I plan on using the heartwood part of the board for a handle and tip overlays, so it'll be neat to have that nice contrast from the same piece of hickory (plus smelling the heartwood as I worked on it made me hungry for some smoked brisket! mmmm).
So I just glued the splice together tonight. My plan is to finish cutting out the outline of the bow and get the handle section glued on tomorrow, then cut out/rasp the limbs to the proper thickness on Sunday, then get the bow on the tillering tree Monday.
