Finally getting back to the work bench and looking for grip advice

[Kindo]

After work getting busy mid-project, followed by a hunting season which just wrapped up, I’m finally back at the bench and continuing on with my first bow.

I’m running into a bit of a snag with my grip and I’m hoping some of you might have some insight as you were all very helpful last time. I didn’t want to bugger up my bow so I quick cut out a rough model out of a 2x4 and got after it with the rasp. The grip feels a little small, especially towards the bottom of my hand. Perhaps I should glue on some additional wood there to blend into it?

Current depth of throat in the 2x4 riser is 1.6”. The width is right at 1.25” at narrowest point just below the shelf.

I’ll attach some pics of where I’m at and I look forward to hearing from you all!

[Kindo]

I should also quickly note, my shelf is not finished on the rough up, nor are any of my blends along the fades etc. any insight into these last few steps would be much appreciated. I did a rough tiller of it, and she seems pretty good with no twisting that I could find, so needless to say, I’m getting pretty excited.

[Mad Max]

It's looking good
Sounds like you already know what to do

[Stagmitis]

I like my hand to be as close the arrow as possible so I would reduce your shelf thickness by about 2/3. Also I like my thumb to touch my forefinger when I set my hand in the grip, whatever depth & width it takes to get there.

 -Too small is always better than too big regarding torque.

[Kindo]

Thank you for the replies so far. What are some of your favorite tools for this point in a build? I currently just have some old round files and one of those 4-way rasps that are about 8” long with only a 4” working surface.

What tools are you using for forming around where there is fiberglass?

Thanks!

[Flem]

Lots of guys use wood rasps for shaping. I'm chicken so I use a variety of blocks and PVC pipe with sandpaper wrapped on.

[kennym]

Rasps are fine but always go from the glass into wood. If you work from wood to glass you can catch the glass and pull it loose.

Most bows are 1” wide at grip and 1.75 ish deep

I would add the extra on grip now while it’s square and flat and take off what I didn’t want when shaping. Hard to do after rounding .

Lookin good so far!

[Shredd]

 If you wanna save some time and elbow grease... Get a belt sander with some 50 grit and clamp it on it's side... Use the roller end mostly for shaping... Could pick up a cheap one at Harbor Freight if $$ is an issue...

 Kenny had a good point...
Always sand with the glass never against it if you can help it...   Finer grits won't matter as much but you can always catch a splinter when you least expect it...

[Kindo]

If you wanna save some time and elbow grease... Get a belt sander with some 50 grit and clamp it on it's side... Use the roller end mostly for shaping... Could pick up a cheap one at Harbor Freight if $$ is an issue...

 Kenny had a good point...
Always sand with the glass never against it if you can help it...   Finer grits won't matter as much but you can always catch a splinter when you least expect it...

Thanks for the tip. I do have an older belt sander, I’m just a little nervous to bring power tools in at this point. I will admit, there was plenty of elbow grease put into shaping that 2x4 last night. I imagine that running a finer grit belt at a slow setting would be fine. Maybe I’ll make another 2x4 tonight and see how that goes.

I also have a rigid oscillating belt/spindle sander to use but I don’t like that I can’t adjust speed on it.

Thanks for the input!

[Kindo]

Rasps are fine but always go from the glass into wood. If you work from wood to glass you can catch the glass and pull it loose.

Most bows are 1” wide at grip and 1.75 ish deep

I would add the extra on grip now while it’s square and flat and take off what I didn’t want when shaping. Hard to do after rounding .

Lookin good so far!

Thanks Kenny, I’ll start looking into adding some wood to the grip. As much as I just want to hammer it out, since this is actually coming together half way decent (nothing close to all of y’all’s that I’ve seen here), I’d really like to make it as nice as I can.

Kenny, I’ll be in touch here shortly to order up some more supplies for my next one!

[mmattockx]

I would add the extra on grip now while it’s square and flat and take off what I didn’t want when shaping. Hard to do after rounding .

+1, it is vastly easier to glue on blocks before anything has been shaped. OP can also add an overlay to the back if he needs more thickness than he can get on the belly side with the ramps as they are.

Thanks for the tip. I do have an older belt sander, I’m just a little nervous to bring power tools in at this point.

Doing it by hand is ok. Much easier to avoid mistakes and catch the ones that do happen. I use hand tools for almost all my grip shaping for that reason. If something goes sideways with power tools the bow can be ruined in a flash. Now that you have gone this far, investing a couple more hours to get the grip right by hand seems like a small price to pay considering what you have put into it so far.

This is a great build along that shows a lot of detail on shaping the grip. He is using power tools for it, but it has some very good ideas on how to approach it from roughing to finishing it off. The riser/grip work starts on reply #57.

http://www.tradgang.com/tgsmf/index.php?topic=153887.msg2662219#msg2662219


Mark

[Longcruise]

For that handle extension, you can fit a block there or you can layer it like this one.  This one is alternating glass and maple.

I do most of my final shaping on a Rigid oscillating and find it works pretty well as long as the grit isn't too fine.

[Bvas]

HF carries a set of small drum sanders that work great in a cordless drill for shaping handles. I think they are $5-10 for a set of three with sanding sleeves included.

[Kindo]

You guys think something like this would be sufficient or would some laminated layers work better due to my ramp profile? I’m far from an engineer so I really struggle with visualizing things!

[Crooked Stic]

About 1.5 from front of bow to deep part of throat. You could always put a couple of .250 overlays on the front and gain some to.

[Bvas]

I don’t know where 1.5” is from the front of your bow is,  you want something like this. The throat, or deepest part of the grip, is usually on the center line.

[Bvas]

That is why a lot of guys do the overlays like in the pic longcruise posted to get more grip length.

[Kindo]

That is why a lot of guys do the overlays like in the pic longcruise posted to get more grip length.

Yeah, my riser was supposed to have about another 1.5” of grip length but I had to modify it a bit due to ramp angles and my laminates not wanting to mate up with the riser. That’s what I get for trying to “wing it” and not trying something tried and true for my first one. I was expecting a steep learning curve, and was honesty expecting to mess it up. Since it’s coming along now, I just want it to work out so I can start slinging some arrows!

Thanks for the tips though. I’ve just been shaping the 2x4 based on feel and I’ll see how that grip is comparing to my riser and it’s center.

Thanks again.

[Kindo]

I think this will work and feels good in the hand with the mock up.

This brings another question though:

How do you finish the transitions and blending into the glass from these overlays without buggering up the glass?

Thanks again for everyone’s patience with all my questions!

Kindo

[Kindo]

I finally got the courage up to dig in and I think I finally have it wrapped up today.

Thank you to everyone who offered up advice and help. It’s been a while since my BP got that high while cutting out the sight window and grip! I’ll include a few pictures of the final product minus a leather wrap, shelf pad and a durable finish on the bow itself.

The string came today and that’s the first (and only) arrow at 20 yards. I would’ve shot more but the arrow got stuck in my frozen target and it was too cold to go back out there!

Thanks again!