1st Recurve Bow Build - Limb stuck in form?

[kenboonejr]

So... when I glued up my lams yesterday I coated the entire form with furniture wax, then laid plastic wrap over the bottom mold, put the glued up limb assembly in place put the pressure strip in place.  I then wrapped several layers of filament tape around different parts of the limb and form to keep it in place.  Then I put another layer of plastic wrap over that, then put the hose on, then bolted the top of the form in place.

Today, I go to take the limb out.  I watched the Bingham's video again first, where it was like a 30 second process, cut the tape, peel the plastic wrap away, the metal pressure strip just pops up, they removed that, and out comes the limb.. yea ... no.. didn't happen like that for me.  So got the tape all off, and started peeling the plastic wrap away which seemed to be glued up to it quite a bit, and once I had most of that gone.. the pressure strip was still in place.  I had to grab the extended piece of the pressure strip and really use force to get it loose and was finally able to get that peeled off.  It seems the limb is somewhat glued in place.  Maybe I used the wrong kind of plastic wrap.. I dunno.  I do have a lot of epoxy that squeezed out the size of the lams.  Do I need to just get a chisel and chisel this excess epoxy away?  Do I just try to get a blade under the limb and pry it up?  Not sure how to proceed here and don't want to damage the limb.

Hoping ya'll can point me in the right direction.

I'll attach a picture of what it looks like now.

Thank you!

[kenboonejr]

Oh and by the way.  The plastic wrap went half way down the mold too.. I just have already peeled away what was not stuck.

[Flem]

Epoxy and pressure make for a tight interface, you might just need to yank that thing off.
How much epoxy did you use? Looks like a lot of squeeze-out.

[Mad Max]

Do  you have rubber hammer?
Or tap the epoxy buggers with a hammer while you are pulling on the recurve end sticking up

[kennym]

You did all the right stuff, that epoxy down over the edges of form holds a lot. Mark has the solution, rubber hammer...

[kenboonejr]

Hey you guys are awesome!  Rubber mallet got it loosened and then I was able to pull it off!  That was great.  Now need to get things cleaned up so I can glue up the second limb sometime this week.

[Jeff Freeman]

Good deal, I know they're tough to pull off. Make sure your formica strip is flush with your wood / sides of your form. I Always wax my form with furniture polish and let it dry on there plus a 3 to 4 mm plastic over the form. JF

[Jeff Freeman]

Holy crap upside down. Dang it

[kenboonejr]

Good deal, I know they're tough to pull off. Make sure your formica strip is flush with your wood / sides of your form. I Always wax my form with furniture polish and let it dry on there plus a 3 to 4 mm plastic over the form. JF

You know I just used regular old kitchen plastic wrap - is that part of my issue?  Do I need to get a thicker mil plastic instead of the plastic wrap stuff?  Also, you mentioned letting the furniture polish dry.  So I pretty much waxed the form while the heat box was heating up.  Should that have been done say the day before or hours before perhaps?

[Jeff Freeman]

Just use a good three to four mil plastic cut off about 10 inches off the roll and unfold it. Take that down to your form. I spray my form down with some old furniture polish, I don't know what it's called it's some old s***, pledge. Just in case. I let it dry I do that in between glueing up bows. JF

[Longcruise]

I switched to wax paper and found it easier to handle and control.

All of mine get the rubber hammer.   It's gotten to be SOP .

[Mad Max]

Your good with the plastic wrap

[kennym]

I like the cheap plastic wrap that doesn't cling as much.

Also I take a scrap of lam or glass and wipe the excess glue down off the limb edge after airing (if you use the hose method) , this glue goes between the 2 layers of plastic and you can just rip it off after you pull it off form. It helps with that also by freeing up one side.  I just grind the other side off with the thickness sander. If I didn't use that, I would wipe both sides down...

[Mad Max]

My cling wrap usually gets torn at the washers but the rubber hammer works every time

[JamesV]

I use the plastic wrap with the handle from Harbor Freight and double spiral wrap the entire bow . This pulls all the lams tight and avoids any glue from getting on the form and also it eliminates the need for washers to keep the lams from slipping making it possible to use the same form for different width or length limbs. 

James

[kenboonejr]

I use the plastic wrap with the handle from Harbor Freight and double spiral wrap the entire bow . This pulls all the lams tight and avoids any glue from getting on the form and also it eliminates the need for washers to keep the lams from slipping making it possible to use the same form for different width or length limbs. 

James

James if I am understanding you right.  Once the limb of the recurve is glued up, you completely wrap the limb in the plastic, instead of laying the plastic on the form before and after the limb right?  That does sound like a good method - especially to help keep things from slipping out of place.

[Flem]

I'm curious, do you form guy's sand down smooth and put a sealer like shellac or something else on your forms before they are put to use?  Wax is not going to do much on fresh plywood unless you get 20 coats on it!
Another thing, furniture wax has a melting point of around 140deg. Not a good choice for the hot box. Mold release wax or even some car waxes are far superior for this application.

[kenboonejr]

I'm curious, do you form guy's sand down smooth and put a sealer like shellac or something else on your forms before they are put to use?  Wax is not going to do much on fresh plywood unless you get 20 coats on it!
Another thing, furniture wax has a melting point of around 140deg. Not a good choice for the hot box. Mold release wax or even some car waxes are far superior for this application.

Well I was just following the instructions that came with the Bingham's kit. And they said to use furniture wax so I put a coat on and went from there.  Your temperature melting point is a good point though.  What I am learning - is that there is a lot more to this than what the instructions show me   Now I will say that once I got the limb out, the mold cleaned up very quickly.  The excess epoxy that was stuck on the edge of the mold just popped right off.  The limb on the other hand has a lot of epoxy that oozed out that I need to clean up.

[Mad Max]

I'm curious, do you form guy's sand down smooth and put a sealer like shellac or something else on your forms before they are put to use?  Wax is not going to do much on fresh plywood unless you get 20 coats on it!
Another thing, furniture wax has a melting point of around 140deg. Not a good choice for the hot box. Mold release wax or even some car waxes are far superior for this application.

Flem the wax would need to be rubbed on every time for glue up.

I brush several coats of  Shellac on the top of the form just to smooth it out.

I use a centering drill jig to drill a 1/4" hole dead center of the riser and form to pin every thing down, no lams slipping around.

[Mad Max]

  The limb on the other hand has a lot of epoxy that oozed out that I need to clean up.
[/quote]

This is normal, you can do like KennyM said, I use my gloved finger sometimes.