The Need For Tight Glue Lines & The Solution

[ChristopherO]

Yes, I know most of us garage bowers are tied up with, no, obsessed, with poking a deer about now but until my back ordered broadheads finally arrive I am spending what little time free to work on some riser sections.  A couple of weeks ago I was frustrated in attempts to get my glue lines as tight as I know they could be.
It is difficult to smear the glue on and then make all the parts to fit without sliding all over while trying to clamp it tight and still keep it even.  That with the fact that my riser material happened to be the exact width necessary for my form created a larger problem as there wasn't any room for error.
Something needed to be done to correct this.  Taking a que from my old home building days I thought that a simple jig maybe the solution.  Some good size oak scrap and a few hours at most using a plan scratched on a paper towel and my riser pains should be much less of a problem.

This shows the side of the where the clamps hold the riser sections down and tight agains the side posts at the same time.
 

Here is what the other side looks like displaying the size of the jig and the clamp's ability to squeeze the top down fast againts the bottom creating a tight glue line between the cut outs and the laminating strips.
 

Oh, yes, from this point on I am doing my best to cut my blocks over sized to give room to plane down after the glue has cured, too.

[chrisg]

good idea, time spent building jigs and carefully setting up is never wasted. One tends to want to 'get it all glued up' on the first bows and mistakes and failures teach patience. Good craftsmen are incredibly efficient with time and effort.
Abraham Lincoln, when asked how he would go about cutting a tree if he had eight hours to do it, was said to have replied that he'd spend six of them sharpening his axe.
chrisg

[Tom Leemans]

Jigs, like clamps, are one of those things you can never have too many of.

[bamboo]

tight glue lines are 90%fit-10%clamp and jig
----------------------mike

[Badwithabow]

nice...