A Memorial Buildalong... Update on page 6

[twigflicker]

Well, after some discussion, I’d decided that rather than using power tools, I would take the risers home and use some good old elbow grease, filing, rasping them out…

I got home, and after eating a bite of dinner went to the workshop to start…  I got out all of pops old rasps, files, and other tooling that he had accumulated through the years and started... well, let’s just say that is completely for the birds… after working up a good sweat and accomplishing very little, I texted Monte and asked, “Hey man, can a fellow put a sanding drum in a drill press or in a dremel tool and go at it…  He said, “Sure can,” and then he again emphasized, “You can always take material off, but you can’t put it back on.”  I had a 2” sanding drum from grinding turkey feathers so I started piddling a little on my wife’s riser… (catching a theme here?)

Well, you need to have a dust collection system to keep the mess down… Monte uses a huge shop vac that attaches to each of his tools… so I thought… hum, I have a big shop vac… let’s redneck this so here’s my first dust collection system…

 

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It worked really well, other than the vac didn’t have a bag in it so I ended up with all of this fine dust all over everything in the workshop… well, shoot hard lessons learned…

I’d fully intended to keep my wife’s bow a secret, but the cat got out of the bag pretty quick when I started asking, “Hey, how’s this grip feel to you?”

So the next day I took a trip to the local Menard’s that opened this past spring and I’d not taken time to even stop by… while there, I bought a couple of clamps, a ¾” drum, 1” drum, 1.5” drum and sanding sleeves for all of them, and vacuum bags for the shop vac, and an upgrade on the dust collection...

 

[twigflicker]

That evening I commenced to again working on my wife’s riser… I took it down to here and stopped till I could see Monte again and ask questions about how to proceed…

 

At this point it’s really blocky and plain ugly… but that old adage… “You can always take it off, but you can’t put it back on” was constantly ringing in my head… I had yet to start on mine yet… I was getting some quality practice in beforehand…

So, I’m stuck at this point…  Monte lives 70 minutes away so, you don’t just hop in the car and run over for a few minutes… or at least I don’t… remember I’m a cheap son of a gun… ;-)

[twigflicker]

Wednesday, January 6
The company Monte works for had a booth at the ATA show in Louisville and he came down to check stuff out at the show and to pick up some supplies at a local store for the company… while he was coming through, I’d asked if he could stop by the office as I work just a few minutes from the interstate…. He was happy to and we talked about the show a bit and then commenced to discussing the riser and him pointing out what needed taken off where… and how if you did this then it would flow into here… and to work some around the limb beds as it would help it flow…

And the whole time I’m thinking crap… this is a bit “artsy” for me… I’m not sure I’ll be able to do this…  You see while growing up, I was a bit of a bull in the china shop… and pops would routinely tell me I could tear up an anvil… so I was less than optimistic…

[twigflicker]

Well, I went home that evening and proceeded to do some more work… and felt halfway decent about how the riser was beginning to take shape...  Here’s some pics to illustrate where I’d gotten to at this point…

 

 

 

 

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Once I got this point on my wife’s riser, I decided I would start tackling my own and got it down to this point…

 

 

 

 

And there’s where I stopped…

[mark Willoughby]

Looks great!!

[Roy from Pa]

Very nice..

[twigflicker]

Thanks Mark and Roy... have a couple more installments before I'm caught up the present....

[twigflicker]

January 23, 24, 2016
Now the beauty of technology today, allowed me to take those pictures and send them to Monte for his perusal…  He sent back a text later and said, “Your bow handle is taking shape.  You can cut it a little deeper in the sight window.”

Now I thought I’d texted back asking, “How much deeper is a little?” but I can’t find that in my text now… so I guess I hadn’t asked and proceeded very slowly and carefully at this point… no more power tools here in the sight window… rasps and files only… well at least for a bit as you’ll see shortly…

 

[twigflicker]

When looking at the risers, I ran a string from the center of the limb bolt holes down the front thinking I could gauge how deep I was to center… the upper part of the sight window was pretty close, but flared out toward the shelf so I slowly started rasping and filing, being sure to keep the crown of the radius over the deepest part of the grip or close… and keeping the “top” of the shelf radius in the same area…  In my working I’d developed some little “ledges” for lack of a better term on the shelf… I think they came from not filing and rasping close enough to the shelf top and for the life of me I couldn’t hardly get that micarta to cut with a file on those “ledges”.  So in a moment of weakness I broke out the dremel tool with a small sanding wheel and went very slowly…  if you look closely at the following picture you can see what I’m talking about with the “ledge”.

 

[twigflicker]

Once I got that evened out and felt pretty good about how they looked… I again took some picture and sent them to Monte for his perusal once again… here’s where I’m at as of today…

My riser…

 

 

 

 

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And my wife’s riser…

 

 

 

 

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So Monte sent a note back saying, “Looks like you about have them under control.  Looking pretty good, are you happy with them?”

And I said… “They are getting there… have some more shaping I want to do yet, but overall pretty happy with them.”  Then a few minutes later I sent this note back to Monte…

“I think I’m going to quit while I’m ahead and not grind off too much and let you take a look.”

Monte quickly responded, “That might be the best thing to so.  You can always take it off, but you can’t put it back on.” LOL

So that’s where we are today… who knows when we’ll be able to get together again… we both have teenagers with all their activities,, upcoming hunts, conventions and who knows what else life will bring in between, but will update this thread as we get more work done…

Thanks again for dropping in and for all the encouragement…

Jonathan

[scrub-buster]

It's looking great!

[Mad Max]

looking good

[mikkekeswick]

Looking good so far. Your friend is giving you good advise!

[hitmantoto]

Nice !

[twigflicker]

Thanks guys... Will continue to update as we get work done... Me net says we'll start on the limbs next time around...

[twigflicker]

February 10, 2016
Well, I started gathering some more supplies… we’ve had a few days off due to conflicts in schedule as mentioned before… I’ve needed to order some clear glass… and I’ve been pretty hesitant about ordering because of the clear glass issues that many have been having with streaks and whatnot…

After doing some research I’d gotten wind that Rosewood had been having some pretty good glass so I rolled the dice… Monte had given me the info I needed of 2” wide and .040 thick… Well when I called I had a brain fart and couldn’t remember what thickness of glass I was needing… sensing my panic the fellow (I can’t remember his name) from Rosewood was so kind and said, “that’s vital, why don’t you just call back when sure.”  That was service out of the way as he’d already left the shop to go to the office to complete the order.  

A quick text to Monte reminded me of the thickness needed at .040 and proceeded to call back and got the order completed… He said the glass should be at your house on Friday… and it arrived right on time Friday…