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N00b tries to make a bow

 
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wm_crash
Member


Joined: 24 Feb 2013
Posts: 140
Location: Wilmington, DE - USA

PostPosted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:01 am    Post subject: N00b tries to make a bow Reply with quote

Howdy,

I thought I'd open up a thread about my attempts to make a curved stick with horsehair on it. One day I'll make one good enough to be called a bow.

I made some basic mistakes here, but the worst was to cut the mortise before cambering the stick. The stick twisted some during cambering. I had enough meat on the stick to adjust the stick faces to the new twist, but the mortise was already cut. I tried to work it out with heat; it worked to some degree, sometimes I am not sure if it's there or not.

I also realized I need a better approach to shaping the head and possibly a few smaller rasps. I also cut it too short, and roughly patched it with a piece of wamara (stick is bubinga).

I wasn't happy with the facets close to the head so I decided to round everything off into a round stick.

The frog was purchased and really it's rough and need a lot of work. I won't be doing that work, I just needed something to put on the stick to see how stuff goes together. The facets (which are still there on the 4.5" section of stick) might benefit from being taken down just a hair for a tighter frog fit.

I am including some photos. I am still not sure if I will keep going with this stick, it may be good exercise to hair it just to get a feel of cutting a mortise in the head (not planning to get a mastodon tip for this one in case anyone was wondering Smile )


cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan



























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Ed Shillitoe
Member


Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 110
Location: Syracuse NY

PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That looks quite similar to a bow! I think you should go ahead and cut the head mortice, put some hair on it and try it out!

How long did it take you? Will you still use Bubinga for the next one?

I agree that cutting the stick mortice before you camber the stick can get you into trouble. Basically it just takes a lot of experience to get everything done in the right order - and you can only get the experience by finishing a few and then starting on another one.

Do you have a lathe? That screw hole seems to be placed just right, which is not easy.
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wm_crash
Member


Joined: 24 Feb 2013
Posts: 140
Location: Wilmington, DE - USA

PostPosted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How long did this take . . . . I would put it at under 15 hours. It could have been shorter but I felt like experimenting with the shaping part. I shaped it with a japanese plane. The plane body was somewhere around 3" wide and 9" long. I don't think it was a good idea, it was hiding a lot of the cutting action and was somewhat difficult to control. This may have something to do with the messy facets that made me round the stick off.

I have a lathe (Jet 1220VS) which is outfit with a 36" Vega Duplicator (I have too many irons in the fire, one of them is making drumsticks, hence the duplicator). I used it with a Colt and a router attachment to cut the nib at the end of the stick. The stick just barely fit through the wheel to come out the small Nova chuck - I rotated the stick by hand. But because of the way the duplicator clamps to the lathe bed, I could not advance the tailstock to drill. The screw hole was drilled by hand. Once the nib was there, it was easy to eyeball the middle which I marked with an awl. I clamped the stick vertically in the vise on my bench (just a regular woodworking bench with a front vise, nothing fancy) and placed three engineer squares around it. That gave me good reference points to adjust the drill angle.

Next stick will probably be bubinga again. This stick is one blank from a billet which I cut into two blanks (with the tips at opposing ends). Cutting blanks is the thing I hate most. These two were cut with the rip side of an azebiki (to separate the bodies) and then a kataba at the ends. I don't have a bandsaw because I am too chicken. My brother in law (doctor) tells me stories of him patching up people who pushed their courage on power tools, that doesn't help. A bandsaw is on my list as soon as SawStop comes up with one.

That being said, I already have the twin blank of this guy that I am messing with now. I will most probably use it next. The improvement for next stick will be added patience and possibly a few new small planes with more of a scraping action. My only current scraper plane is a japanese dainaoshi, and I need to get away from japanese tools for this.

I am also considering to shape the sides of the head right off the bat. That way they are there and I know not to touch them. On the current stick, I was shaping the body in the proximity of the head and inadvertently hit the sides of the head as well. I messed up the head portion assuming that I'll get to it later and shape it right, but I probably removed too much while thinking I'll get to it later.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan
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Mat Roop
Senior Member


Joined: 24 Mar 2007
Posts: 911
Location: Wyoming Ontario

PostPosted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice effort!... any pics on the next one?
Good luck ... Mat
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