Reworked another one

[GREG IN MALAD]

I want to start this story by saying that we shouldn't throw away our early attempts at bow building. Even though they may seem hopeless at the time, after we gain experience they may be fixable. I sure wish I had saved more of my early bows.
I was at a friends house a while back discussing bow building, I think we were discussing our early bows, how bad they were, and what it would take to fix them. In the corner of his garage is a 5-gallon bucket that holds "bucket bows", the ones that didn't turn out well but were too good to throw away. He retrieved one such "bow" from the bucket, handed it too me and said, "try to make something shootable out of this one". I'm always willing to accept a challenge so I agreed.
 After I got home and looked it over really good I started to second guess myself. It had three different rings on the back, was whip tillered, and had a big knot on the edge of one limb. However it was 70" long and had plenty of wood in the riser to work with. For grins and chuckles I put it on a postal scale, it weighed 30 ozs and drew 47#.
   

 

 

I'm not sure what happened here, but it wasn't good.
 

 

 I started by working the back to one ring and  then cut it to 62" long. Then I reflexed the tips and aligned the string.
 

I was able to remove most of the knot and it started looking pretty good.
 

[GREG IN MALAD]

I was running low on cow horn so I used black phenolic for the tip overlays.

 

After a little tillering it started looking better.
 

The grip needed filled out a bit so I used epoxy putty to make a bulbous handle and shelf.
 

After several coats of tru-oil the tips sure look like horn.
 

 

The bow has a mass weight of 18.5 ozs and draws 45#. It lost 11.5 ozs of mass and only lost 2# draw weight. It is one sweet shooter.
 

Here is the bow with it's "new" owner. I hope you enjoy it Mark.
 

[DVSHUNTER]

Nice save greg! I have used the putty for grip filler before to. It works great. I nevee thought to use it for a shelf. Good call. Sweet tips too.

[GREG IN MALAD]

The putty worked so well for the shelf I'm going to start using it more often.

[BigErn]

Good looking bow,really like the tips!
                                   Ernie

[red hill]

Great work, Greg!
Where do you get the epoxy filler? Haven't heard of it before.

[SportHunter]

Great job on the challenge, looks very nice!

[karrow]

wow what a remoldel job  

[GREG IN MALAD]

Thanks Guys, It was the most challenging rework job yet. I learned quite a bit on this one.

red hill, I found the epoxy putty at the hardware store.

[burnt]

Nice. I go back and rework boys alot.

[kevin_h]

What was the name of the epoxy product...

[Dmaxshawn]

I've reworked a few of my earlier bows.  It's kind of funny because you can go back to them and ask yourself.   Man what the heck was I thinking?   Or why in the world did I do that?  


I like cow horn too turns out really nice.  Good job on the re-furb.  

Shawn

[Shaun]

Nice project and well done! The "fades" are still scary but there was not much you could do to change that. Nice tiller and finish and it looks like a real shooter now. Love the original club tips with wrap around string groove.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Cool rework and gift Greg! My corner of learning is officially empty now. I finished my last rework a few days ago and the rest have been burned up.

[Roy from Pa]

Very nice Greg.

[bjansen]

Nice rework Greg.  What kind of epoxy putty was that?

[Trux Turning]

Nice job on that one Greg!!

[GREG IN MALAD]

Kevin and Brad, I don't remember the epoxy putty brand name. I used the 5-minute variety.

Shaun, I agree with you about the fades. I was a bit worried but they held. The bow only took 1/2" set so it's still overbuilt and understressed.

Pearl, I like your "corner of learning" phrase. I always called mine "the corner of shame" and it still holds 4 bows.

[caleb0100]

great job! Makes me want to re-examine my seconds shelf.

[okie64]

Thats a great lookin bow now Greg. Love the braced and full draw profile.