Thinking about trying a splice?

[CaptainJ]

Originally posted by SEMO_HUNTER:
BTW- Did you all know that hedge burns awesome? It burns hot and leave very little ash.
Don't ask me how I know this.

Heh, Yep, according to Wikipedia it has the highest BTU content of any wood.
 Osage Wiki Link  
I use all the scraps for heat. Not that I get that many scraps. Osage is a premium around Colorado. I use as much a I can for the bows.

CJ

[SEMO_HUNTER]

I can believe it, and I though Hickory or Locust was the hottest wood you could burn?

Since I cut my own hedge/Osage I have lots of end cuts and scraps from debarking, removing sapwoood, and general prepping. There's always some offall from the logs and such that don't get used in the finished staves and we don't waste anything around here. As a matter of fact I ran out of red oak firewood just a few days too soon and the cold weather came back. I burned almost 100% Osage for nearly a week every day I was working out in the shop.

I got some more pics of the splice stave coming shortly.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Ok here's the results. I guess this looks good? My first one so I really don't have anything to go by, but I do like the gap filling properties of the URAC 185. I did find out that 72deg. is borderline being too cold in the shop to use this stuff, unless maybe you could add more hardner? It took a long time to set up and when I peeled it open today it was still a tad bit tacky. So I put it in my hot box for a couple hours and it got hard as a rock.

 

 

Here's the oak handle over lays, I used TBII on these. Hope that doesn't interact with the Urac??
I had a nice piece of Red oak planed down smooth that was laying under my work bench and also a piece of White Oak that was planed. I couldn't make up my mind which one to use so I used both. Red oak on one side and white oak on the other. Should be an interesting combo.    

I don't even know if this experiment will make it all the way to the end or not? It's more or less just practice work, the Osage is rather thin and I'm hoping to get at least 45# out of it, maybe not? Hopefully it will at least make a nice bow for my nephew's birthday? Which really doesn't need to be anymore than about 30# or so anyway.

Even if it doesn't, it was just scrap that almost ended up being firewood and I needed the practice run, so I really don't have anything to lose.

 

 

[Art B]

Chris, just my opinion, but I think you should have used the urac for your handle pieces...........Art

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Here's why I went with TBII.
It's a heck of alot cheaper than the Urac, I can buy it locally and don't have to order it and pay shipping, and there isn't that much stress on this area with a board on both sides. This area isn't going to bend, and I've used TBII on things of this nature before and couldn't tear them apart without ripping the wood all to pieces.

So I'll save the Urac for the jobs that only Urac can do, and use Tite bond for all the things I "know" it's capable of doing.   :D

[Roy from Pa]

Splice looks nice Chris, and why didn't you use Urac for handles?

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by Roy from Pa:
Splice looks nice Chris, and why didn't you use Urac for handles?

Don't mess with me Roybert, it's early and your billets haven't made it out of my garge yet, so you better be nice to me this morning.  

[Art B]

I remember testing for bond on Osage to Osage with the Tite-bond II and got less than desirable results Chris. Maybe the TB III has better adhesion to oily woods like Osage. Don't know, looks like we're about to find out   .......Art

[okie64]

That splice looks good Chris. I got a bunch of 3' pieces of hedge I might have to try that with.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Oh well, if a handle lam flies off I can always put it back on with the Urac. This was and is a practic project anyway.

BTW- I glued a Rosewood/Osage riser together with TB glue and it's still holding strong, I glue all my tips on with TB glue also, have yet to have one of those fail on me. But that's not to say that it can't happen?

[Eric Krewson]

Unless you make a bunch of backed bows, 6 or more in the next year, your  urac will dry up(get thick) or go bad before you use it up.

You don't need to put the hardener in the frig.

Had you used urac for your handle overlay you could heat bend the handle to fine tune your string alignment, not so with tite bond.

Use urac for all your bow gluing, use it up, buy some more. With all the work we put into bows, using a bomb proof glue is worth the trouble acquiring it.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Good point, I hadn't thought about it going bad. I may use it up doing splices, but chances are some of it will get tossed eventually?

I don't plan on bending the handle, but I will put some shape into the limbs when it's time.
At any rate this is good practice for me and I may end up with a shootable bow out of it?