How to finish the bow?

[pintail_drake2004]

The bow im working on is almost finished, its boo backed hedge w/ coco tips and handle. Do i need to seal this bow? if so, with what? the boo is bright after i scraped it, i saw once at a trade show where someone had scorched the bamboo (or something like that??) at the nodes and feathered the black away from the nodes...does anyone know what im talking about? how is this done? does it affect the integrity bamboo? It made the bamboo "blend" into the woods.

I have searched the net, and the archives and have not been able to find what im looking for.

Pintail

[Charlie Lamb]

pintail... you will need to seal the bow. That can be accomplished several ways. Spar Urethane from the hardware store is one.

Another would be to rub parafin all over the bow and then melt it into the wood with a hair dryer or other "non threatening" heat source.

What you saw at the trade show was probably a dye job and not scorching of the bamboo.

My bud Dean Torges describes the process in detail in his book "Hunting the Osage Bow". You should be able to get it from 3Rivers archery.

Basically you use leather dye (Fiebings)or an aniline dye and apply with a rag or sponge pulling the dye from the nodes out onto the limb surface to get the blended look.