First glass bow buildalong (Finished bow page 5)

[kennym]

I guess it is on time, supposed to deliver 4/01

Here is the tracking report....

Your item arrived at our ALLEN PARK, MI 48101 destination facility on March 31, 2017 at 12:28 pm. The item is currently in transit to the destination.

[Lee Lobbestael]

Got my  lams, and glue in the mail saturday! Thanks Kenny. I also picked up a big chunk of zebrawood for the riser. Wow they don't give that stuff away! And friday I dumpster dived at the bike shop to get 4 inner tubes. Now things should start moving along pretty good. Tonight I hope to skive the two bottom lams together and make a template for my handle. Dumb question here, the tapered lamination goes below the riser right? Also, my father in law is a wood worker and he read an article abot a guy sprinkling table salt in his glue after he spreads and it keeps everything from sliding around. HE said it disolves and doesn't hurt anything. Have any of you guys tried this?

[Robertfishes]

If your making a standard riser with ramps...Then Any lamination thicker than 0.070 needs to go under the riser. Not sure about the salt?

[kennym]

Yes put the .002 taper and a parallel under the riser and the .001 and a parAllel up the ramps. The .001 taper will be the thinner one.  Never heard about salt trick but I don't think I'll try it. We try to keep everything clean so I'd hate to put something in there on purpose.  

[iohkus]

Salt probably only disolves in a water based glue.

[Mad Max]

I use a 1/8" wood dowel

[Lee Lobbestael]

Ok sorry this is going so slow. Last night I cut and spliced the bottom two lams together. My father in law is a wood worker and he convinced me that splicing them horizontally like this provides a longer and stronger glue joint than vertically. I also saw it done this way by Dave Watson (I believe his name is) online and it worked good for him. I glued them with loctite two part epoxy and it said to wait 24 hours before stressing the joint, so I set them aside and began working on the handle.
       

[Lee Lobbestael]

Yeah not gonna try the salt method but I am going to pin everything

[Robertfishes]

I like to use a "scarf joint" for splicing the tapers on the KennyM design bow. The tapers have to flex/bend to conform onto the bow form. I think A straight Hill style riser could use the joint you posted since it doesn't flex during glue up. The scarf joint I try to do is between 1/2" and 3/4" inch to end of fade. I glue them just like you posted but I have been using GG super glue.

[Lee Lobbestael]

Well this guy on you tube used this joint on a similar r/d bow and it seemed to work fine. I wasn't really confident with my ability to do the other joint without messing up. I think it will hold tho. It doesn't take alot of pressure to push any of the lams flat against my form and this epoxy is pretty good stuff.

[Lee Lobbestael]

Ok so you were right Robert, The parallel joint held up but the taper popped apart when I tried to flex it into the form. So I trimmed it off and went with the same joint Kenny used in his build along. This time it worked good. I made sure everything was square and sanded the joints flat with a block sander after.      
Next I started working on my riser template. I screwed a piece of squared up 1/4" to the back of my form making sure everything was squared up, stacked my bottom lams on the form and traced the out line with a pencil as I pressed the lams into place. I didn't have enough hands to take pictures while I was doing this.  
Than I cut it out on the band saw and checked the fit. I sanded the high spots with some 80 grit sandpaper and I currently have it to the point where it fits fairly well, although it still needs a little work. Ran out of time..

[KenH]

That's a "scarf" joint, and works best when the length of the angular cut is 6x the thickness of the material being jointed

[kennym]

And I thought my walnut jig was fancy!!  :D

[Lee Lobbestael]

After much sanding and shaping, I got the template to fit my form almost perfectly. I could  just barely see light in a couple of spots but they were minuscule so hopefully that is good enough because no matter how much I messed with it I couldn't get it better. I played around with different handle styles for a couple days and this is what I came up with. I shoot 3 under with a 1/2" fixed crawl so I figured that moving the shelf 1 1/2" north of center wouldn't hurt me any. here is the 1/4" template. What do you guys think?    
It is 18" tip to tip and the first 3" on both sides will be the same slope

[Bvas]

I made my template just for shaping the back side of the riser (side against the form). Then "freehand"  the radius cuts on the belly side.

There are a couple reasons. One it allows you to experiment with deifferent grips and riser shapes. But also, I'm not sure you will be able to keep the fades on the template from moving around  and flexing while trying to follow them with a pattern sander.

[kennym]

When doing the fades, use a good square block behind the riser fade to keep everything in line.

Assuming you will use a spindle sander or the end of a belt sander.

Getting closer!  

[Lee Lobbestael]

Ok guys finally making a little progress. Yeah Bvas I shouldn't have cut out the ramps on my template, They were a bit flimsy. But I stuck them to my piece of zebra wood with carpet tape and they stuck pretty good. I used the template as a guide for the router and got it close.  
When I tried to fit it on my form there was a major air gap that I don't remember being there when fitting my template, So I spent 45 minutes marking the high points and flat filing/sanding the form to get everything to fit tight. When It finally fit in there with no light shining through, I checked my square on the form and of course it was was off from all my sanding. So I spent anothe 45 minutes getting it back to square. Now everything is square and fits tight
Next I cut the ramps out on the band saw and used a spindle sander to get a knife edge on the tips. Next I have to touch up the riser ramps a little and then do a dry run with everything on the form.    

[Lee Lobbestael]

Also I'm going to pin the riser to the form and the top lams and glass to the riser so nothing slides during glue up

[Lee Lobbestael]

So I did a dry run and didn't like how hard it was to bend my lams into the steep ramps so I made them a little less aggressive. I also pinned my riser and laminations to the form.        

[Lee Lobbestael]

I made up these pressure strips with adhesive high temp rubber to raise up the middle and aluminum strips.
However I seem to get better gluing pressure without them. What do you guys think about just putting the thin rubber strip on the back of my fiberglass and going without the aluminum? It seems like it takes tons of clamping pressure just to get the aluminum to form to my ramps, whereas without them everything lays right in there without stretching the rubber bands too much.