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The very essence of bow making (a Hail Mary)
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seammc
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Joined: 04 Feb 2014
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Location: peru,ma..usa

PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:19 am    Post subject: The very essence of bow making (a Hail Mary) Reply with quote

If one has a pocket knife and can sharpen a pencil or peal an apple, one can make a bow
All the special tools just make it easier
Materials: piece of cherry or beach … Some drills... a saw for rough cuts … A cheap frog ... a hank of hair and a bow to copy (and make patterns from)
Order of March can be found on you tube to start (bow making videos)
Any one game? After the above, a bow making class should take on a new meaning
work slowly and remember the part being worked on is the most important part
Jim
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wm_crash
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am game, but what's the game?

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan
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seammc
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 11:22 am    Post subject: simple bow Reply with quote

No game really
It just reflects some advice that I got years ago from some one that I greatly respect (a master saddle maker)
To start (anything)....make it as simple as possible .and work on it the best you can and stick with it (and enjoy the solitude) The magic will happen

This is toe to toe with skill building (and "gee.. I couldn't do that")

Jim
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wm_crash
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 3:53 pm    Post subject: Re: simple bow Reply with quote

I'm more into "what one man can do, so can another", sometimes launching myself into new endeavors without ever expecting the possibility of even mild temporary failures. Sometimes, it's several new endeavors at a time, but they generally revolve around wooden musical instruments. E.g., last night I glued up an asymmetric shell for a walnut snare drum.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

seammc wrote:

This is toe to toe with skill building (and "gee.. I couldn't do that")

Jim
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seammc
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:34 pm    Post subject: Re:"what one man can do, so can another", Reply with quote

I agree 99% and the thought has served me well over the years.
the other 1% can be a problem .. I'm thinking in the area of an art form where the sum of the parts is greatly less than final value of the work piece .. I think its some times called magic, some have it every time, others have to work at it

a walnut snare sounds intrigueing

Jim
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seammc
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:50 am    Post subject: Cherry wood bow Reply with quote

I think I'm going to give it a shot with the simplest of hand tools (it will take a while)

I remember a story about The German concentration camps ... a violinist was interred and he made a violin from packing crate boards (played for the other prisoners, making the moment a little more bearable) ... desperate times...

This really stuck with me for come reason .. something came out of nothing

A good violinist can make a rubber band and a match box sound good, which may lend a measure of credence to the above.

Jim
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seammc
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 9:04 pm    Post subject: Cherry wood Reply with quote

I was out in the woods and cut 3 or 4 Cherry flitches ..about 14 inches in the round.

Out of that I wound up with a lot of fire wood and a few promising pieces for bows ,,, a lot of knots and grain distortion

they need to cure out before they can be started

they have a locked grain so when they were split out they were quite stingy... just what I wanted

Any one have any thoughts on a the grain direction for Quarter sawed...

it seems to me if the grain goes from side to side the bow won't defect outward (stay straight)...grain top to bottom the arch will be at it's strongest ????

did any one know that some woods grow in an upwards spiral so splitting is better than sawing ?..splitting follows the grain

Jim
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whatwasithinking
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 1:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Take a look at John Bolander's booklet. On the last page is a diagram of a perfectly quarter-sawn stick, from the perspective of the head-end. That's the preferred method.

http://share.myflare.com/tLZBdM
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seammc
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 8:05 am    Post subject: John Bolander's booklet Reply with quote

One thing comes through loud and clear "after making 1000 bows' it is possible to get a feel for bow making

Great little booklet ... just full of clues!

I believe that his tanning his bows had to do with "B" U.V. ...

Tempering the bow is priceless My first bow would have benefited from that It works really well so I won't mess with it but the next will get that treatment

Thanks for sharing

Jim
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wm_crash
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Out of all the youtubes I've seen on stick bending, none of the people allowed the stick to cool off before heating another section. It didn't look like this was possibly edited out, and was certainly not mentioned as something important.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan
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whatwasithinking
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 10:29 am    Post subject: Tempering Reply with quote

The subject of tempering seems to have caused some confusion. In an interview with William Salchow in 1978, Mr. Bolander clarified this a bit:

Salchow: You also mentioned tempering; the setting of the stick after you have bent it.
Bolander: That is very important to me, for an untempered bow will go out. It will warp, move, and do tricks. That might be the cause of the twisting you spoke of and that may explain why it doesn’t happen to my bows.
Salchow: You bend them in sections and when they are all but just right, then you heat the entire stick, is that correct?
Bolander: No. I don’t heat the entire stick. I have my template and I just put it alongside. I had several templates at one time, but they didn’t seem to gauge properly. But Mr. Lanini had a template that worked right every time! When you work with a bow you keep planning to get it to look right. I want to make sure I have the exact line I want, being especially sure to get the top three facets and then I work on the other side. These I want to get tiger straight.
Salchow: Yes. That’s where everybody looks down.
Bolander: You hit those three facets on the top of the stick and then you work from there.
Salchow: When you speak of tempering a stick, what exactly do you mean?
Bolander: This is what I mean. It is very easy to bend a stick. When it reaches a certain point, it goes down just like mush.
Salchow: I see what you mean. At a certain point in the heating, it begins to bend easily.
Bolander: When you are moving the stick very fast, it will take a tremendous amount of heat without burning the stick. Moving it back and forth and turning it around.
Salchow: And then it goes. . .
Bolander: It just goes limp.
Salchow: Then what you mean by tempering is the reaching of that critical point when it bends so easily?
Bolander: Yes.

So it seems that by "tempering," he's not referring to an additional, separate process, but rather to allowing the wood to reach a temperature where it's heated completely through, and the camber will hold.

BTW, I asked Ed about the need for allowing a heated portion of the stick to cool before reheating it, and he doesn't follow this. I haven't found anyone else who does this, either, but I guess it wouldn't hurt anything.

Bob
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seammc
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 10:31 am    Post subject: stick bending Reply with quote

I think, some where, it is mentioned ...clamp in a form 'till cool (can't find it now)
Have you started the next bow?
My shop has a car in it ..wife's car got stupid and SHE WANT'S IT FIXED

Jim
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whatwasithinking
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 10:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe Kun and Regh's book mentions using a form to hold the sticks until they cool, but I don't believe this is common practice.

I'm about ready to camber a cello stick made of bloodwood, since Ed has had such good success with it. His wood is probably better than mine, and I don't have high hopes for this one. It does behave a lot like Pernambuco when planing it, though.
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seammc
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 11:12 am    Post subject: Re tempering Reply with quote

Quote: The subject of tempering seems to have caused some confusion.

so it would seem. For me tempering means establishing a memory (or maintaining a memory) ... I can see another mini lab coming In my first bow ,It curled up like a banana (in the right direction) and that curl was 90% right ... just bending the tip section for the other 10%

I am sure that your conclusion is right and what one doesn't do (in the heating and bending process) carries the day

In the metal forming process 'tempering' is quite different, in John's case It could mean 'great discretion'

Bill,I'm glad that you are around to keep we spastics headed in the right direction

thx

Jim
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Last edited by seammc on Thu Apr 17, 2014 6:57 pm; edited 1 time in total
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wm_crash
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Someone correct me if I am wrong (or buy me the book so I can correct myself), but these guys clamp the slick to molds which they then place in an oven (at 400F if I recall correctly). They allow the stick to cool on that mold/form along with the oven.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

whatwasithinking wrote:
Maybe Kun and Regh's book mentions using a form to hold the sticks until they cool, but I don't believe this is common practice.
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