What did you do today, 2015....

[kennym]

Good luck Bob! I had one done,not as bad as I expected. Do the therapy for sure , the pain relief was immense when healed up!

[David Flanrey]

Hang in there Bob.  I had one done last November.  Like Kenny said, do the therapy.

[bigbob2]

thank you one and all! Heading off now to get it done!

[Buemaker]

Good luck Bob.

[halfseminole]

Another vote for do the therapy.  I got ahead of myself on the braces and ripped my hip out.  Sidelined me for a while.  Be good and you'll be out there sooner.

[LittleBen]

Well, had a nice clear shot at a doe last week. Got the bow up, drew back, clean releas, perfect arrow flight ... Thwap! The arrow sticks right in the ground where I was aiming. Unfortunately the doe heard the bow and turned away hard. Clean Miss, pun intended. Anyway, not 20 minutes later I had a nice 8pt come through, even at 15 yards I couldn't sneak an arrow through to him. Let him walk.

After all that fun I decided I needed to cut better shooting lanes (new stand location) which I did Sunday.

Also decided I needed to go to a MUCH faster bow. I was shooting a hickory hickory Ipe tri-lam longbow 62" 47# with a 575gr carbon. It was probably struggling to see 140fps, and the tips are a bit big so it's a bit loud.
Put that down in favor of my favorite recurve. 58" 62# hickory walnut ipe. I had sidelined the recurve due to poor arrow tune. So I've been making up a nice set of new arrows, bare shaft tuning, fletching etc.
Ended up having to cut some 50-55# Doug fir shafts down to 25.5BOP with 125s to get it to tune and had to shim the strike plate a bit also. Always shocked how much effect center shot has on spine needs.
Got to do some shooting today to confirm broad head flight. Arrows came in 470gr +- 15 gr. man does that bow smoke them. The tune was great. Decided I would fling a broad head at the target at 30yds with a field point arrow already in the bullseye ... What's the chance anyway? Turns out the chance was good enough because I already ruined one of my brand new arrows. The broad head tune was just awesome and the blade ran right up the other arrow and scrapped it. Bittersweet.

No substitute for bare shaft tuning.

Figure it must be pushing close to 175fps, granted that's at like <8gpp but I think 475gr-500gr should do the trick. Point on distance also jumped to close to 50yds from the previous setup's 30ish yds. That should help me reach out a bit if need be.

Now i just wait for Veterans Day when I can get back into that stand. Rut should be on so it might be time to try some rattling and some scents ....

Arrows: sunburst rit dyed, 4" 'highback' shield cut. Masking tape and scissors to cut them. They came out like 20mm high, a little excessive but they seem to fly really well so what the heck.
 

[halfseminole]

Burned up my work computer's power supply and have been working on getting it talking right again.  That and scraping hammertone paint off a riser.  Got to have it clean to repaint it.

[BenBow]

LittleBen I like the style of your fletching I think I'll copy it. I built a feather burner out of a $5 goodwill toaster and used the flat wire from one side to make the shape I wanted. Won't take much to modify the one I have to match yours.  

[Zradix]

Nice lookin arrows Ben.

Sounds like you're having a good time.

Keep goin at it.

I hope to connect before work in the morn...gotta be at work by 11:30am...so it'll be a short hunt...but every hour in the woods ups your chances.

[RedStag5728]

Mentioned to my parents about my need to get back to the shop and work on an ash bow for my uncle from the ash tree he gave me a section of off of his property, and that I would like to make my dad  a bow for his birthday next October. Got on the discussion of wanting to get my hands on a nice piece of Osage to make dad a bow and described the  fruit and the names of "Bois De Arc", "Osage Orange" and "Horse Apple" and said it would be nice to find a local source.

Mom spoke up and said she had seen some horse apples right down a local road and in an area that I am familiar with and drive by ever so often (more-so to go to my traditional 3D shoots I go to every year). It peaked my interest so we took a drive today to look at it after work, and sure enough! Right at the very edge of the state road along the fence row where the two major state roads intersect not 5 miles from the house there was a long row of Osage Orange! Some of their fruit had fallen into the road and some was hanging on the leafless branches!

However its on the fence row to a local farmer's field so I am going to have to find out who owns that land and see if I can't get permission to harvest 2 or 3 (ok maybe all!            :p  )

[Buemaker]

Tried out my new lamination dust blower. Don't want any wood dust on them nice lams before glueup.    
 

[Zradix]

Yee Haw!

[Roy from Pa]

I've seen it all now.. LOL

[monterey]

Masking tape and scissors to cut them.

Ben, I like the fletching.  I'm curious how you employ the masking tape to cut them by hand.   :confused:   They look as good as anything that's ever come off the burner.

[LittleBen]

Originally posted by monterey:
 

Masking tape and scissors to cut them.

Ben, I like the fletching.  I'm curious how you employ the masking tape to cut them by hand.    :confused:    They look as good as anything that's ever come off the burner. [/b]

Thanks, I must admit, in person they are not as perfect as a burner produces, but they're consistent enough the flight is unaffected and they look good ... but just not perfect.

I apply masks tape to one side of a full length feather, then just hold my template (card stock or thin plastic or w/e) over the taped feather and cut it with scissors. The tape holds the quills from flopping around while you cut. Good scissors are a must. Mine are crap and I sharpened them 3x for 3 dozen fletchings. I'm sure good fabric scissors would be perfect.

[monterey]

I'm going to try that.

[Roy from Pa]

Got me an order of boo.. Madake it's called, very nice stuff.

 

[Zradix]

Dang Roy!
Looks smooth, clean, and great node spacing.
     

Think you can get 3 backs outta one?

[Roy from Pa]

4 maybe 5... Time will tell...

[Zradix]

no kidding?

Must be bigger in dia than I can tell from the pics.

SWEET!