"Bow-building For The Stubbornly Frugal" - Lam Grinding

[Tron]

So I've been thinking about how to make my new bow building addiction a little more affordable ever since I glued up my first bow and made just enough mistakes that I didn't ever end up finishing it.        Now a couple more bows into the learning curve, I've decided shelling out 20ish dollars for a single lamination was a bit steep.  

I spent the last few days working on a bed that fits on to my belt sander, and will allow me to grind my own lams.  It did take quite a bit of fussing, but I thought I would share it with everyone here.  

Here's what it looks like: (sorry about the quality of the pictures, my iPhone is my only camera)

 

And the back-side with the adjustable screw

 

The piece just above my hand is arched slightly as to fit over the little ridge on the top of the body of my sander.  All I had to do from there was mark the base on my sander so I could put it back in the same spot each time, and run some stock through it to fuss and get it parallel.  

Today I ran a 68 inch piece of bamboo through it to make sure I could run good lams through it.  Since the bamboo had a fatal flaw in the form of a horizontal split and was also just ugly because some grey staining in the cane, I wasn't overly concerned about possibly ruining it.

 

Also anyone who hasn't done this before get as much airflow and ventilation as you can, and I also set up my shop-vac to get most of the dust, which comes off the wood in horrendous quantities. glasses and mask is a must too, and I like to wear gloves to keep some of the itches off.  Bamboo is about as bad as fiberglass in that regard in my opinion.  

Anyways, the lam actually came out great.  I'm not sure how thick it is, but holding it up next to some other lams I knew in a bow, I estimate its about .050" and I think I could get it less then half that thickness if I wanted too.  I used a 24 grit belt on my sander, which takes material off really fast and gives me a good gluing surface.

 

I currently have some experimental staining on that lam drying, seeing if I can give it some amber color, and reduce some of that grey you can probably see in the picture.  We'll see how it goes.  I'm estimating I can save around half my cost to build by grinding my own lams, and I can simply use a .001 taper lam as a sled and get a great matching taper using the same method.  

I hope this helps someone be fiscally able to build more bows, it is certainly helping my student budget wrap its very small hands around the neck of bow-building.  Now I think I can go back to designing my new longbow form instead of paying attention in physics class and not feel guilty about it.

Cheers!

Nathan

[Tron]

Looks like my resizing didn't work correctly on some one the pictures.  I'll repost them if they get taken down.  Sorry admins!!    

[red hill]

Thanks, Tron. I have that same sander and had tried to figure out how to do just that. Like to know how it works over a little time.  

[Tron]

Yea we'll see how it holds up over time.  Theres nails on the ends so I can strap it down pretty good while running the lams through.  I haven't had it move yet during any of my test grinds or the long lam I did.

[Greg Szalewski]

Looks good Tron.

[Cuban Missile]

Yeah looks good!

[Jason Scott]

You can put two .001 tapers together to make a .002 taper sled if you choose.

[kennym]

Originally posted by Jason Scott:
You can put two .001 tapers together to make a .002 taper sled if you choose.

Yep, just make some .001s and use what you need.

That is , if your sander will accomodate the added thickness.

If you have trouble with that, maybe make a sled about 1/4" thick and just use it without the thick pc.

I made a plywood table for my sander like that, then just slid the lams thru it with a thin sled like the one I made for you, only thicker.

Hope that made some sense!    

In fact, it is still on the sander , I will take a pic later.