A Memorial Buildalong... Update on page 6

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Once it is all together the hose gets filled up to 60# of pressure... But he does it in increments... By that I mean he puts 20# or so in… lets it sit for a bit while cleaning up… after a few minutes he puts in a bit more air say maybe up to 40# and lets it sit a bit more… and then on to the full 60#...  Monte’s reasoning is that it lets air bubbles work their way out rather than being trapped if airing up to the full amount… If I remember right he had issues with air bubbles getting trapped when he went to a bigger air compressor that would allow him to fill all at once… When he started building bows he was using a smaller compressor that took more time to fill… and didn’t have the issues with the air bubbles being trapped…

Here you can see the air bubbles that have worked their way out…

 

Into the oven she goes and cooks about four hours... At around 160-165 degrees… Monte's hot box has a 3 ft baseboard heater element for its heat source...

 

[Bvas]

Looking good!!!

I think you may be setting a record for the longest build along yet. LOL

But I bet it will be worth the wait!!!          

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You've got that right Brad... it's taking a while, but will definitely be worth it...

Jonathan

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All right... finally got some more written up and will post up to where we are at the present this evening if all goes according to plan...
So, Monte’s hotbox only holds one limb at a time… so during the week he gathered all the pieces for limb number two up and laid up the other limb while I was at home…

When I got there on Saturday, March 18th he had both limbs out of the form and ready to work on…

 

The first step was to take them to the profile grinder that we have used numerous times in our build…  the phenolic we have came in 1.75” in and the veneers, core and glass were 2” so there was some rough grinding to get them down to where they were workable…  my first task was to get one side down and square… where there was no rocking on the table on both limbs and then I proceeded to knock the excess off the other side to get it close…

 

And to clean up the butt end of the limb…

 

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Then we took them to the drum sander and proceeded to knock  the other edge down and square…  let me tell you that was interesting for someone that hadn’t done that before…  they would get to vibrating… Monte had a little fun with that…

We then marked a center line on the tape so that we have something to work from… Monte has really neat little jig that allows him to mark that out…  I’d forgotten to take a picture, but remembered he’d posted a pic of it before… so here’s a pic of his jig… again… jigs make all the difference in the world with precision, etc.

 

 

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We proceeded to layout the limb with the profile templates… the templates have holes along the center line so they can be easily lined up on the center line of the limbs… the tape was then marked with a sharpie marker… to show the profile… earlier I mentioned a difficulty that ensued with the blue tape… the purple sharpie showed up in the light… but when we went to the belt sander to grind the limbs down to the profile we were having a difficult time seeing the line and I was holding extra light while Monte was grinding so we have a lack of pictures through some of this process…

 

 

When we got them finally ground down to profile… we proceeded to drill the limb bolt hole… yet again another jig that Monte had developed… it had two small v’s in each end that you line up with the center line and clamp down and proceed to drill the limb bolt hole in the butt of each limb…

 

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Once everything was drilled and ready… it was time for the unveiling… removing the tape to see what we have below… I was more than pleased…  

Monte made me laugh out loud… as he said when peeling the tape off…

“It’s like seeing your lady naked for the first time!”

 

 

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And a shot of the limb profile at the tips… where they are marked for the location of the string grooves…

 

 

Once we got to this point we dug out yet another jig that Monte developed that allows him to file the string grooves at the same angle… the jig is clamped to the limb tip and you run the file along the hardened part of the jig that keeps it from wearing out…

 

 

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I failed to take anymore pics of our time together this day… but once the string grooves were roughed in we proceeded to bolt up the limbs to determine which was going to be top and which bottom and get an idea of what kind of weight we’re going to end up with…

Monte has a cable that brings the bow to brace and we proceeded to measure the tiller and found we needed to flip the limbs from top to bottom and bottom to top to get the proper tiller…  Once that was done and rechecked we dropped the scale from the ceiling and got out the yard stick and pulled the bow to 28”…  We were shooting for 55# at 28”…

Bummer… of all bummers… we came up light… I think we were like 47# at 28”… I only draw 27” so they were/are going to be lighter than I usually shoot…

So we got to mulling… maybe we can take them down for the wife’s limbs… Monte thought we could probably get them down to around 40# at 28”… so we called it quits for the day and I headed back south and hoping that my wife would be able to draw that kind of weight…

I have an older Howatt bow that is 38# at 28” and she was struggling to draw it back… so we scrap that idea and decide that we’ll finish those limbs out at a later time and will be what I’m calling “my old man” limbs… limbs that will allow me to shoot this bow way down the line…

So that’s the plan for that set of limbs…

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Monte has been playing with building heavier limbs for his 76er risers to bowfish with…  So he decided he was going to build a set and while he was at it… procuring materials, grinding lams, getting glass, grinding out the limb tip wedges and limb butts/fadeouts… and he glued up two more limbs during the week… and even put the limb tips on…

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Saturday, March 25, 2017

So I get to Monte’s on this Saturday morning… again he had worked the previous week after the first set of limbs came out light… he went back to the formula and added material hoping to get us at the desired weight we were shooting for…  He had roughed the limbs out and cut the string grooves and determined which limb was top and bottom again for tiller reasons… and bummer of all bummers… it still came out light… we are now at 51# at 27”…  We’re not real sure what’s causing the discrepancy in the numbers from Monte’s formulas through the years…  the only thing we can figure it might be is the highly figured veneers are causing the differences…  but who knows for sure…  

All I know is that the guys that do this for a living don’t get paid enough… this can be aggravating, but is the way it works and you have to roll with the punches… So we’re going with these and hope to get 48 or 49# at 27” when finished out…

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Monte had already put the limb tips on as well… I’m using .050 black glass, .050 brown micarta, and .050 black glass… Now again Monte through the years of struggling with limb tips and keeping everything from “running” or “walking” out on him developed a really nifty set of jigs that keeps all the material lined up and in place and keeps it all in place…

Here’s a couple of pics that show the jigs on the limb tips…

 

 

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Now here’s where Monte does a little different from some bowyers I’ve read about… he uses smooth on epoxy for the limb tips as he feels it make them stronger and has never had a limb tip “pop” off while using it… And another picture after the jigs are removed here’s the rough tip…

 

So I got to do a little work on them with the grinder… grinding them down close to shape…  And proceeded to file “roughed” in string grooves through the tip overlays…

At this point we took the limbs and got out the jig we used for drilling the limb bolts and locator pin in the limb bolt… lined the jig up on the center line again and proceeded to drill the limb locator pin holes which are like most bowyers different in lengths from the limb bolt to keep from mixing top and bottom limbs… Here’s another pic of the jig…

 

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When we got limb tips in working order… We then took the limbs to a “false” form that Monte built with his limb profile that he clamps the limb to… to give a secure working platform to start the shaping of the limb tips…

 

Now here’s where I begged off… Monte broke out the dremel tool with a sanding wheel to start shaping the tips… I was freaking out as I just knew if I tried to do this I’d really jack the limbs up getting into the glass and making a mess and have to start all over from scratch… So Monte obliged and began the shaping of both limb tips… and I realize I didn’t get a pic before we decided to add overlays on the belly of the limb tips as well… again, we’re using .050 black glass… which really makes for a nice contrast with the curly maple limbs…

Here’s a pic of the jigs applied for the overlays on the belly of the limbs…

 

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We also spend some time beginning to shape the limbs to the profile of the riser and bevel them to flow with the contours… again I begged off not wanting to mess this up and let Monte start the process which will take time and patience…

Here’s a shot of what we are working toward…  These are from a set of limbs Monte made for a Bear TD riser he built…  the same combo of material we’re using on my limb tips…

Limb tips…
 

And overlays on the belly of Monte’s limbs… mine will be black glass…
 

And now we wait for the next time we can get together…
 
Thanks for following along… slowly but surely it’s coming together…

[Bvas]

Man.....,Monte has more jigs than bass pro!!!
     

[kennym]

Nice work! And a lot of jigs is good!!

[Buemaker]

Jigs are a good thing to have. I liked the jig for filing string grooves  

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Ok… been a while since last report, but lots more has come together since the last report… When I left Monte’s last time I left the limbs and riser with him… He proceeded to finish out the limb tips and cutting the string grooves on the belly of the bow…
I wasn’t there when he did that work… but the way he explained to me was that he strings the bow and marks the lines with a sharpie and then takes a dremel tool and roughs the outline of where the string loop would run… very carefully… just hearing about that made me nervous as any work with a dremel tool can get away from you in a hurry…

The next time we got together we began taking the limbs and making them match to the flow of the riser…  I didn’t take the time to take pictures unfortunately, and I’ll do my best to explain how we went about doing that…

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Monte had given me free license to shape the riser the way I wanted it to look… and it created some extra work on this end…  We attached the limbs to the riser and scribed a line where the riser contour met the limbs… once that was done we took the limbs off the bow and went back to the profile template grinder and began tapering the butt of the limbs to match the riser…  Monte had a word of caution here and said to be careful about getting to much of an angle on the limb butts… his reasoning was that if the angle got to shallow that the glass next to the riser if it gets hit, dinged or dropped will be more likely to splinter or even separate… not that I’m planning to test that theory…

Once we got closer to the profile we were shooting for… Monte has a small sanding drum that you run in a drill press that is pneumatic… coolest little thing I’ve seen… you actually use a little pump to put air in this sanding drum and it “flows” better while shaping than the hard drums do…

We spent a good part of the time together that day just getting the limbs and riser to match the way we wanted…  When we got to that point, Monte sent me home with sand paper and a pat on the back saying have fun…