A Memorial Buildalong... Update on page 6

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Monte and I had hoped to get together this past weekend to get some limb wedges ground and other preliminaries for getting the limb together, but previous commitments kept us from getting together and getting any work done…  

Monte is in the middle of building a knife that he is donating to the PBS for its upcoming banquet in FL… He also has another surprise that he is working on that will be donated as well…  PBS’ers going to FL will want to keep an eye out for the unique “Man Cave” item that will be available…  I’ll try and post some pics of it once the banquet is over…

If all goes according to plan and the weather works out we’ll get some more work done this coming Saturday…

[BrushWolf]

Looks like they are coming around nicely.

[Pago]

Very classy.

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Saturday, February 20, 2016

Monte and I were able to get together again, so early on Saturday morning I started the trek north to Monte’s place.  I arrived around 9 o’clock and we headed to the workshop… we had an eventful day planned… I was a bit skeptical as I was going to be doing much more of the work as Monte was trying to finish up the knife he is donating to the PBS Banquet coming up…

First order of business was to cut and grind some more micarta for the limb wedges/fadeouts…  We had one piece that was already ground but wasn’t enough to make two wedges/fadeouts with… it was only 16” long and we needed 18” as that’s what Monte’s “recipe” for his limbs calls for… so to the bandsaw I go and cut them just over 3/8” thick…

 

 and then to the drum sander to square it all up once again…

 

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Having my two pieces all squared up, we got out the jigs that are used to grind the fadeouts… We had two different ones… The first jig did one side and it was a real gradual taper…

 

The next jig finished out the limb wedge/fadeout…

 

And after some work on the profile/template grinder and away I went…
And the final result… thin… thin… thin… very fine fadeouts…

 

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If you remember I’m using some veneers that I’d gotten locally, so we needed some more woods for the core… after limited discussion and deferring to Monte’s experience it was determined that we’d use the good old hardrock maple…  Monte had procured a maple board some time back and had it stored away for future use… One hint he did share with me during the day was when you’re  out looking for wood  and you find a good piece, if you can afford it… “won’t keep you from eating”  LOL… buy it and put it back if you are going to build several bows as they usually don’t have what you want or in the quality you want if you have to go get it then…

Here’s the board Monte had purchased from the local Menard’s…

 

We set to cutting it down into two 36” pieces… one it was cut to length I took it to the bandsaw and ripped a two in section out and took it to the drum sander to clean up the edge…

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Once that was done again, with Monte’s tutoring he showed me how to lay out the board so the laminations were kept the same direction in the same way…  Monte showed how to do that… I’m going to do my best to explain it, but not sure I will be able to the way he did…

On our board we put a small arrow that gave us a reference to return the board to the vice the same way each time… it was a bit confusing at first as Monte is predominately right handed and I favor going at many thing as a lefty… so it was a bit trying to get everything all “kosher”… Anyway, Monte’s theory is that you want all the limb tips to come from the same end of the board and therefore the limb butts will also come from the other end of the board… if I remember correctly he said that way if there was any variance in the lumber that it would be placed at the same place in the limb…

Needing 4 core pieces, Monte set the square so I could mark a line that I would then bandsaw along… giving me plenty of “cheating” room due to my inexperience with his saw, etc…

 

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I’d cut a lamination of core wood… take the main board again which is marked so I can return to the vise the same way every time and go to the drum sander and clean up the section that was just cut… back to the vise… mark another line… and cut…

 

Repeating this process until all four laminations were cut… Oooopppppssssss… I forgot one step… as I cut a lamination off Monte would have me number it… starting with the first being 1… the second being 2 and so on till all four were numbered… again this helps us keep which goes where and with what…

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Now, while I was cutting and grinding away, Monte was busy getting the specially made brass sleeves for the limb bolts to attach into…  Monte takes a brass rod and having access to a full metal shop at work is able to thread the brass rod both on the outside which screws into the riser and is held in with smooth-on epoxy… once they are threaded on the outside he has a device that he can place them in and then drill and tap the inside where the limb bolts will then screw into… once they are done, he chamfers them as well…  very concise… very clean…

Here’s a couple of pics showing Monte installing them in my wife’s riser…

 

 

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I meant to take a close up of the pieces, but forgot, so I’ve tried to take blow them up… they are a bit grainy but maybe it will show enough details to figure it out…

 

And here they are placed in the riser…

 

Once those were in place in both risers we went back to the drum sander and began sanding down the laminations…  Monte had several years ago built a what I call a taper sled… it is built to grind a .001” per inch along the length of the lamination…  It has sand paper along the top of it where the lamination lie so as to keep them from shifting or slipping as they run through the drum sander…  

 

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After numerous passes, (there was quite a bit of waste) as Monte had given me plenty of room to make mistakes, the four laminations were ground to .020” at the tips… which according to Monte’s formula’s (he keeps a little black book with all the details of each limb built and results) with the veneers, laminations and glass should make a 58” bow that comes in at 55@27”... At least that’s the plan…

Thanks again for following along… may be a bit again before we’re able to get together due to previous commitments, but from what I could gather, we’ll be gluing up a limb next time we get together…  I took the risers back home with me and will begin sanding on them a little at a time getting them closer to the final product…

[BenM]

Great Build along.  Thanks for taking the time.

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March 4, 2017

Well, It’s been a little over a year since we last visited this project…  The spring//summer brought lots of activity from our two households…  I take care of several of our church member’s, other senior’s and a couple of single moms yards… last year I was cutting eleven different yards plus my own and a full time plus job on top of that… there wasn’t any time to get together to work on “our” project.

Fall came and went… without even going to the woods… it’s was a very weird fall to say the least…

Anyway, we’re back and were able to get together on a Saturday morning following an appointment I had earlier in the morning…

When we left off last time, just about everything was done up and ready to glue a limb up…   We had cut and ground the maple cores… cut the curly maple veneers… the limb butt wedges were ground and it was all laying on the bench right where we had left it…

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Our goal for the day was to get everything together and get a limb in the oven before the day was done…

When we left off last time, we had not cut the glass yet… it was still in the 72” lengths that it had come in… so Monte commenced to cutting it off…  I was amused by his technique of dust collecting as it reminded me of mine… gotta make do with what you have…  He is used to working by himself… LOL

 

Monte uses a tile saw blade in a hacksaw frame to cut the fiberglass as it saves regular blades from wearing out so quickly…

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Once the fiberglass is cut…  Monte makes sure to keep the pieces of glass in order and marks them as such… In other words… from one piece of glass, when it is cut in two… those two pieces are marked as either the back of the belly of the bow… He was taught and feels it keeps continuity within the limb… Here’s a pic showing the glass marked…

 

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We next took the veneers and laid them out on the bench side by side

 

This was done to figure out which way we want them to run and we decided to put a real heavy dark grain toward the butt of the limb so those were all laid out correctly…  Monte also showed me how to orient the veneers and the core wood so that they work together in helping stay straight… I may not be saying that right, but what he does is if there is any grain run out on the veneer or core the back will run to one side… and the belly to the other side…  as he was describing it and showing it to me it reminded me of my high school woods class…  where when we glued up a series of boards to make a table top that you alternated the grain like this…

 

I’ve tried to do a little editing here to show the grain and how it’s running…

 

What we did was take veneer A and flip it upside down on top of veneer B so the grain run out is running in opposite directions… and we did the same with the core wood as well…

I hope that I explained that clearly enough…

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So the next step of the process is to cut off the ends of the core wood… Monte has a small bandsaw with a really fine tooth count on it… helps keep the wood from splintering and splitting out…

 


Monte has for the last several years placed a tip wedge in his limbs… I believe this is due to using the modern low stretch strings… gives strength and stability to the limb tips…  

 

While we were working on the tip wedges… Monte put the materials, veneers, and core wood in the hot box for a short time as it had been sitting for close to a year as to drive any moisture it might have accumulated while sitting in the workshop…

Again, he has a form that allows him to grind them to shape and has a fine feathered edge on it…  He did the first to show me how… and went to the house to grab something and said here… you do the next one while I’m gone…  

 

Well… I got started and all was going well and then it slipped… shoot… I think I butchered it up… sure enough… well at least I was smart enough to stop and wait…  Monte got back and thought it would not be a problem once the tips were shaped so we went with them anyway… and sure enough they did work just fine…  Whew… avoided a mishap…

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We (well Monte did) cleaned all the veneers, core, glass with acetone to remove any finger prints, any oils, etc. off the material…  He also cleaned his bench off with acetone as the material would be laying on it... to remove anything that might cause adhesion issues down the road…

 

Once everything is all clean and oil free… We ran blue painters tape down the back of the glass to keep glue of the back of the bow and to enable us to mark the center line...  We used blue painters tape as we weren’t sure as to how long it would be before we would get together to get more work… that ended up being an issue later on as it was much more difficult to see the lines after marking out the limb profile when grinding it out…  Monte as a little trick he uses in laying down the masking tape… He used a piece of flat bamboo with a piece of leather to smooth down the tape and remove any splinters from the fiberglass...

The next step for the day was to prep the form…  All of the metal parts were covered with aluminum foil as to keep the epoxy off of it… and the form is also covered in seran wrap again to keep epoxy from getting on it and buggering it up…

 

He also has a metal strip that he uses to help distribute the pressure and covers with it with Seran wrap as well...  honestly I’m not sure how a fellow would go about doing that by himself… as it wasn’t easy with four hands… let along two…

 

The fire hose gets two layers of seran wrap on it... again it was interesting trying to keep that stuff from sticking to itself…

 

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The smooth on gets weighed out... And mixed accordingly ... And now time for the glue up... Powder free Gloves to keep it off of you...  Monte figures he'd rather have too much epoxy ready than have to weigh more out at the end when you have run out...

 

Epoxy is run down each section getting good coverage but not too much to squeeze out everywhere and waste...

 

Once all the pieces are glued up and stacked in the proper order…  

 

 

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He puts on the metal piece and then strings it down... for this he uses an old piece of fast flight serving…

 

Then the air hose is put in and puts the top of the form on and attaches all the pieces…

 

 

If you look closely you can see a tongue depressor in the form… The form is marked with where the tip wedge is supposed to be located and the tongue depressor allow you to push it to its proper place…