Thanks all. Vampire, Here's a shot of the workbench right after I made it a few years ago. It breaks down into two sections to travel or move into the house. (Crazy heavy bugger to move around, but VERY stable.) Three long bolts/wingnuts hold it together. Two through the top and one through the center leg. The end of the vise section rests on top of the double leg section, and two bolts run down through. I winged the construction with scrap wood. I only recently added the tillering tree, which is attached to one of the legs with half a dozen long screws. I keep it outside year round and spray the vise down with WD-40 on occassion. I've also had a permanent version mounted in my basement for years, but without the wooden legs, being mounted on a steel post that is lagged to the concrete floor.
Oneraindog, For the overlays, I mark points on each limb tip for grinding a bevel with my disk sander. Then I freehand the bevel bevel grind with a 30 grit disk. I cut a wedge of horn, grinding one side flat, which I glue it on with superglue gel using 3 or 4 tiny C-clamps. From there, I grind the worst of the excess horn off on the disk sander, before using a #50 Nicholson and 4-in-1 file to round the top of the overlay. Last, I sand the overlay to 400 grit, then use steel wool to polish. I also tear small chunks of steel wool off and twist them into a fat thread that I use to work back and forth in the string grooves. The most difficult part is grinding the flat bevel on tip of the bow. It's a little tricky to keep even, left-right, so I work slow and stop and check it often.
Topic: Yellow Trout Osage Bow (Read 1110 times)
