Quote from: Guster on Today at 08:14:46 PMLooking good! I just got all my bits and pieces ready for a glue up next week. I'm loving the dark wenge and excited to see how it turns out under the glass.

Wenge under clear glass wont show much grain pattern... Just turns kinda black. Don't get too excited.

Looking good! I just got all my bits and pieces ready for a glue up next week. I'm loving the dark wenge and excited to see how it turns out under the glass.

You might consider ordering a test kit from 3Rivers (sponsor) which will give you several spines to cut, finish, taper, and fletch then add different weights. Start about 10 yds. If want to paper test, hang paper on a box frame 2 ft. in front of your target butt. Arrows that are weak will tear a hole to the right (RT Handed bow) and left if to stiff. Then you can add point wt. if the arrow shows too stiff and vise versa. Have fun.

Quote from: rmorris on Today at 10:56:37 AMThese UV fillers and finishes are amazing. I can have a bow from sanded and ready for a finish to shooting arrows with a fully cured 2 lays of finish in under 30 minutes. This is one I did for my son a few nights ago.

You posted while i was typing my last post.... So what type of UV finish are you using? Same brand?  I'll be curious on what you think of durability. it looks good in the photo.

It was nice meeting you too

Quote from: rmorris on Today at 10:56:37 AMThese UV fillers and finishes are amazing. I can have a bow from sanded and ready for a finish to shooting arrows with a fully cured 2 lays of finish in under 30 minutes. This is one I did for my son a few nights ago.

Details on the filler and finish you used?


Mark

Quote from: Bryan Adolphe on March 20, 2026, 01:37:41 AM

Quote from: Crooked Stic on March 15, 2026, 08:44:05 AMI see you can buy it by gallons. Is it sprayable. Can it be used under a solvent finish like Krystal?

Stic iam not really familiar with Krystal but i think once its cured and sanded i think you could top coat with most bow finishes. They do recommend applying the least amount of product only filling the grain so I don't think you'd wanna spray it.

Krystal is a conversion Varnish. Very user friendly stuff, but doesn't hold up to heavy use in hunting conditions and rain as well as an epoxy finish or auto clear coating does. It was real popular years ago. I sprayed a bunch of bows with it myself, including my own hunting bow at the time. I ended up refinishing my bow in 2 years time, and decided to try the Thunderbird epoxy finish... 

That Thunderbird is tough as hell, but very expensive. it wasn't as user friendly as Krystal by a long shot though. Defiantly a learning curve on that stuff. You had to be very careful sanding between coats. If you hit bare wood in spots you could see the overlap, and had to sand the whole riser again. The other down side to it was it yellowing over time. Don't get me wrong... Thunderbird is an excellent bow finish... I went through about 10 gallons of it before i started experimenting with auto clear coating.

The Auto clear coating rabbit hole can be very expensive, and there are many types. I did find a urethane i liked, but it was too damn expensive. More so than Thunderbird. Then i had a professional auto painter recommend the "Euro Clear" stuff i've been using for many years now.  VERY user friendly, holds up well, stays clear, and half the price of the other stuff i was using. Unfortunately ... like everything else, the price has gone up over the years.

There is my .02 cents on clear coating.    Kirk

Thanks for accepting me into the Cyber camp. I appreciate it. I'm from Madison wisconsin. Mostly gun hunting history but we did shoot a lot of recurve bows(usually poorly) into haystacks back in the '70s when I was a kid. I even had a Fred Bear LP album where he talked about grizzly hunting out west. I can't pull a bow currently because of a shoulder injury. I came across (and bought) these three Dickie Roberts fireball bows. When my shoulder recovers I would like to shoot these bows. I was able to research them to some degree but I wondered if you guys might have any comments. I understand Dickie Roberts was a competitive Archer and started an archery factory in the '70s that eventually burned down. So I'm guessing these might not have been produced for a very long period of
 time. They seem to be in very good shape. The craftsmanship of the wood is just beautiful. Anyhow thanks for the Cyber camp and any info would be appreciated.

FYI, Chris is the wife of Great Northern longbow bowyer Rick Shepard. He along with Jerry Brummell were the original Great Northern longbow and quiver company, plus the Expo in Michigan every January.

These UV fillers and finishes are amazing. I can have a bow from sanded and ready for a finish to shooting arrows with a fully cured 2 lays of finish in under 30 minutes. This is one I did for my son a few nights ago.