Repair Along BBO

[Razorbak]

man..the level of talent on the Bowyers Bench..Eric..that is awesome

[razorsharptokill]

Like open heart surgery for a bow!

[Eric Krewson]

A little more progress. The short string stresses the limbs differently than the long string so a check with my gizmo reveled a few more stiff spots.

   

A little scraping and I was ready for full brace height. The bow is 65#@25" so I gave it a test run and shot about 50 arrows with it. Not bad but I still have to get rid of a lot of poundage. That is the good thing about using a tillering gizmo, your wood removal is so precise you end up over poundage most of the time.

   

I like to do my final tillering with a cheap $13 palm sander. It goes slow with 120 grit paper and takes out all the washboard effect belly scraping causes. This sander takes 1/4 sheet clamp on pads which are a pain to put on this cheap sander so I use 1/4 sheet stick on pads. When I want to change out the pad I heat it with my heat gun and it peels off easily.

   

Probably putting the cart before the horse but I did a little dye testing on the bamboo. I have always removed the rind in the past which may be the cause of this failure. I might have nicked the bamboo and not known it.

This time I am leaving the rind intact so I tested the best way to have it take stain. My BBOs have a distinctive dye pattern and I like to keep making them look like I have in the past.

The middle test has had the bamboo rind very lightly sanded and buffed with a scotch bright pad before being dyed with Feibings med brown. The one one the right has just been buffed with a scotch bright pad, didn't take stain well. The one on the left has had the same treatment as the middle one but I used a different brand of brown leather dye which always turns green on bamboo. I tested it to see what color it would turn on the rind, green as usual.

   

[Eric Krewson]

Got a request for a picture of my vise clamp pads. Pretty simple, easy to remove and offers the best protection of any vise pad I have used so far. The leather is glued on the front with Barge cement and glued and tacked on the top.
 
 

[PEARL DRUMS]

Nice work Eric. That center test spot looks pretty good. I can see the whole back looking that way and I like it! The strung proflie is very sharp! Cant wait to see full draw pics on the tree.

[mississippidave]

Awesome craftmanship as usual!!!

[Shaun]

Good idea for vice pads. I have some soft plastic ones with magnets, the mag's don't hold any more and it is frustrating to have them fall off often. I'm going to make a set like yours. Looks like softwood blocks?

[Roy from Pa]

I use blocks like Eric's, made them out of out of Poplar, very soft wood and doesn't hurt a thing. Use two gum bands to hold the blocks tight to the jaws of the vice. Eric always does nice work.

[Eric Krewson]

Shaun, I like 3/4" plywood the best for pads but a friend was admiring my pads in the shop one day so I gave him the plywood ones and made these out of a poplar board I had in the corner.

I never broken the plywood ones but have broken the poplar ones legs a couple of times while I was really putting the pressure on straightening a stave. I glue them back together and keep using them. You can see one glue repair behind the ruler in the picture.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

So is the repair along completed or is there more to come?

[Bighornangler]

Thanks Eric. This very interesting to me. I have done the same thing way back, but not nearly as professional as you. Excellent post.

[Savage]

Thanks for sharing, you made it look easy.

[Eric Krewson]

Lots more to go on the repair but I may not get to do much more for a few days.

Today I am unloading all my hunting gear from my truck that I started accumulating last September as well as getting the camper ready to pull to the Prespring Arrow Fling at Tannehill park on Friday.

[mississippidave]

Whooo Hoooo!!!! See you there!!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

[Eric Krewson]

Here we go again, back from the spring fling.

The bow was 15# too heavy so I scraped and checked with my gizmo all morning, hit the desired 62#@30" just right.

Here is 15# worth of shavings.

 

After I was satisfied with the bows poundage I began the finish process.

The first step was to sand the rind lightly.

 

I sanded the nocks with a piece of sand paper wrapped around my chainsaw file.

 

I like my bamboo edges and the back to be the same color so I put a coat of tru-oil on the sides of the bamboo so the open grain wouldn't absorb more stain than the back.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I stained the back with leather dye, hated the way it came out, way too streaky.

 

Sanded it off a good bit deeper through the rind than the first time, just a little bit of rind left.

 

[1oldbowguy]

Looking good Eric, very nice.

[Eric Krewson]

I started re-staining the limbs. I use this leather dye.

 

I like to put it on in layers quickly so I make a swipe with my dye soaked rag and follow up with my heat gun to dry the stain quickly for the next pass.

 

I like the final result which I will fade out between the nodes to achieve my "signature" dye job. The new stain is on the left, old streaky one on the right.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Walt said he had been coating the backs of his bamboo backed bows with super glue in hopes of keeping splinters from popping up. Sounds like a good plan so I did the same, wiped it on with a small piece of rag. I really soaked the nodes with glue as well.