How to restore an old bow.

[HuntingSean]

Hello last summer my dad was in my grandmas addic and found his old bow. Im in to bow hunting with a compound and he gave me his old Recurve. It a FredBear Bearcat and 45# at 28inches. Ive seen the bow as a take down but mine is a one piece. any was ive been shooting this bow a couple times a week since i got it and my own string silencers out of a rabbit skin i had. ive had a little bit of secess hunting with it and managed to kill a rabbit and a mole. To my real question how do you restore it. The bow has a couple scraces just on the limbs were the quiver was left on and the tips of string points are scraped and there is a little bit of paint on the upper limb. Im only 15 with little knowlede but my dad is good at working wood i was wondering if it is possoble to do with out damaging the bow and if some one with my experance to do it.Any info would be appreicated.

[Eric Krewson]

For every day use the bow is fine just like it is. If you want to refinish the bow a very light sanding, and a coat of gloss spar urathane will make it look like new.

[Abel]

I would paint it camo. To me, that's the best way to restore those golden oldies that have little value as a collectable....In other words, I wouldn't spray paint camo colors onto a 1959 Kodiak! But a Bearcat is another story.

The first thing to do is take off the adhesive shelf and strike-plate materials....order new ones, as well as a new string. Take some 000 steel wool and rub out the rough spots on your bow. Then take a mildly damp rag and wip the bow down to get all that dust off. Next get some Krylon camo paint, three colors at least. Spray paint at least two coats as your base color....cover every part of the bow. Let it dry for a day, then take some masking tape and rip off some irregular shapes....use alot of tape, enough to cover 50% of the surface area of the bow. Then paint the bow again with your second color. After it dries, go back and put on strips of masking tape that will cover the areas on the bow that you want to show after you've added your third and final color. After your third color has dried, remove the tape. Then add about three coats of Helmsman varnish in a spray can...the last two coats I usually spatter on by gently depressing the nozzle so that a little, but thicker stream of varnish exits the can. This will give your bow more of a non-glare finish.

I have done this to two bows now and I've been very satisfied with the camo pattern and the durability of the finish.

[whitebuffalo]

I just usually give an old bow a good soft wash. I don't use a lot of water but a couple of different sponges to scrub with and some finish revitalizer, They usually end up looking real nice. Jason B.

[42WLA]

What is finish revitalizer and where can it be obtained?

[whitebuffalo]

Well last night on that shakespeare I used what is called orange oil by pledge. It cuts grease and grime and can help lift old patches of moleskin or anything that had an adhesive back to it.Plus if you put a little time into it and polish the bow it really starts to deepen the clear finish. Check out the posting , Shakespeare, 1964 Necedah clean up For Roger , UPDATED pics PG.2 You can see the riser before I started to clean it up and polish this bow. I wish I would have taken pics of the limbs too because you could barely read the bows info on them and they were smudged with all sorts of stuff.
Oh, I almost forgot that I've had good luck with some old english to. Just match the wood with the color type of old english you buy.
Never had any types of isues using these on some of the old Bows I've owned.

[OconeeDan]

Eric hit the nail on the head.

Dan