2021 Bow Trade - build in progress

[PaSteve]

Simk, you've been a busy man. They look great. Hope to finish my bow in a few days. It's been very humid here. Not the best weather for applying a finish. Last coat was put on 6 days ago and appears to be dry enough to completely finish. Hopefully by next week it'll be ready to ship.

[Selfbowman]

Since this started I made a few. One is completly finished, the rest of them is ready tillered and shot in but need some finishing touches. I will now decide which one will be my trade bow and do the finishing works.
Cheers

Sir you have been busy and those are some beauties! Arvin

[PaSteve]

My trade bow is pretty much completed. Here's a little sneak peak. The fume job came out really nice imo. It's hard to capture the colors and contrast in a photo especially on my cellphone camera. Hope my recipient will be happy with his bow.
This was my first time committing to the bow trade. Admittedly, building a bow for a bowyer was a little more nerve racking than building a bow for myself, a friend or relative. Hope to see some more finished bows soon.

[Digital Caveman]

Nice! is this the one with rawhide?

[Mafort]

I got a hickory longbow done. The yrzi needs another layer of sinew and then it’s birchbark covering. I’ll be ready to ship. Will upload pictures as soon as possible.

[Digital Caveman]

I finally got enough rawhide to back the cherry bow, thank you PaSteve!

Anyway, I lost no time gluing it on and I plan to start tillering shortly, it should be pretty straight forward as this is a board bow and I'm going for a circular tiller.

[PaSteve]

Trad,  so the rawhide got there...cool, your welcome. Hope it works out for you... To answer your previous question...my bow isn't backed.. just a fumed Osage selfbow.

[Digital Caveman]

Tiller check please.  Upper limb is to the right.  The tips where flipped ever so slightly.
Front profile is 2" tapering to 1/2" with a slight radius as seen in the previous photo.

Eric's tillering gizmo worked wonders; this was the fastest tillering job I have ever done.  It is pulling about 50# @ 27".  I know tempering cherry isn't encouraged, but it helped so much this time; I gained 10 that way#.

Now I need to test it and clean up the looks, I kind of rushed the handle and need to be creative to make it presentable.

[Digital Caveman]

I'm still deciding what I'm going to do.... I just about finished up my first bow, the walnut one... but I'm not going to put tip overlays or handle wrap on it until I make a few more bows and decide which is the best.... I've got some difficult things for me to get to put on as overlays and handle wrap and only have enough for one bow so want to make sure I put it on the best shooter. for the ruffed out hickory I'm worried about humidity, we have no air conditioning and not much of a good place to keep bows dry, sooo summer bow building is a challenge, I do have a room with a dehumidifier in it but my summer hickory bows I still struggle to keep dry.... going to try fire hardening the crap outa one of the hickory bows, see how that goes

there all-around 9-10% .... much too wet...

I just saw this.  Defiantly an issue here too, that is why I figured rawhide backed cherry would be a great combination.  I've read that cherry is better than most in humid climates (though that didn't stop it from taking a lot of set) and when dry winter rolls around the rawhide will keep it safe.  I expect the bow to gain at least 5# when that happens.

[Jakesnyder]

I got my bow to brace height and put some shots through. It. Shoots really well. Still holds about 1" reflex when unstrung.

[Fox]

Dang... looks like I best stop messing around with pelts and get back in the woodshop! I don't know what to do about my humidity problem... maybe I'm going to have to build a proper hot box..

[Kidder]

Great work guys! We’ve got some real nice bows coming along! I am please to say that I’m finished! I know I said that before and then noticed a problem that had me starting over, but this time I’m done. Heres the posting of it!
https://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,70420.0.html

[Digital Caveman]

Dang... looks like I best stop messing around with pelts and get back in the woodshop! I don't know what to do about my humidity problem... maybe I'm going to have to build a proper hot box..

What about your solar kiln, how well does it work? how do you build one?

[Deerhunter21]

So I just have a question, at this moment, does it look like the reserve bows are going to be needed? If not are we still planning on doing a reserve bow trade? I’ve already got a reserve bow built and it’s ready in case someone can’t get a bow out.

[Kidder]

So I just have a question, at this moment, does it look like the reserve bows are going to be needed? If not are we still planning on doing a reserve bow trade? I’ve already got a reserve bow built and it’s ready in case someone can’t get a bow out.

Nice work. It’s really hard to say at this moment. My hope is to make sure we get you in on a reserve trade of at all possible. We’re still a few months out so there is definitely time for people and I’m seeing good progress from most and it looks like there are a couple reserve bows out there. So fingers crossed...