The materials were purchased from one of our great sponsors here Pinehollow Longbows.
I was given a nice piece of bamboo that needed to be flattened on the bottom side. I used my combo belt/disc sander. It is nothing special of a machine but gets the job done. After about thirty minutes I had a nice flat bottome to draw out my design.
I am using Roy's layout that he passed along to me a few years ago. The bow will be slightly wider to accommodate for the longer draw and heavier poundage than I am used to. I figured I would make it a little wider than the average 1.25 inches and go with 1.5 inches wide. This way I hope to end up with as little set as I can possibly have.
Once the bottom was flat I used some spring clamps and positioned the bamboo so that when I set a piece of string over it with weights on either end the string ran down the middle of the bamboo. After it was in position I made some little tick marks and removed the string. Carefully I removed each clamp and slid a long straightedge under and was able to draw out my center line.
From there I began laying out the bow. I make my handles 4.5 inches long so that gives me 2.25 inches each side of center. My fades I like to be 1.75 inches long so I measured them out and drew a line across. From my fades I was tought to run the 1.5 inch width out 6 inches. There I made another line. My bow being 66 inches overall would give me 33 inches either side of my center of my handle. I drew lines on either end marking the length out.
I continued drawing the outline of the bow out and once completed this is what it looked like.
Here is a picture of my handle that I drew.
Because I had very little to remove to get the outline of the bow I went to my bandsaw and removed just the tapered part. I then went back to my belt sander and removed the waste until I got it to my line as you can see.
When I was finished shaping the profile of the bow to my lines this is the end result.
Notice that the limbs are not aligned right now. I will have to position them during glue up but once forced into place the tips will be in line and a string will run through the entire center of each limb.
As you can see that once we have the outline of the bow on the bamboo it is very thick still.
Now I will have to remove some thickness until the bamboo is 1/16 inch at the tips and 1/8 at the fades.
Topic: BBO Follow/Build Along (at brace) (Read 640 times)
