Please help. Need advice on old recurve bow repair.

[San jacinto joe]

Hello. I’m new to trad gang and was wondering if anyone could please help me with repairing a old darton clipper recurve bow? The bow has a few issues and any advice I could get would be greatly appreciated. The bow has some slight lifting of the fiberglass on the belly side at the limb tips. Plus a very fine hairline crack in the riser. From what I’m reading I could repair these problems with some loctite 420 and a insulin syringe. I think the bow is a 1965 model. It is 62” AMO rated at 26# @ 28” so it’s a very light bow. Plus I only have a 26.5 draw length so I won’t even be getting the full 26# anyway. I slid a small piece of printer paper in the cracks and they do not seem to deep. I can’t even get the paper in the hairline crack in the riser it’s so shallow. If anyone could please help me with advice on how I could possibly fix these issues I would be very very thankful.

Thanks guy’s
San jac joe

[Onski316]

I had something similar happen to me on my Wing Gull. I was able to use Gorilla glue gel and found a tip from model car/airplane building that put a wide, thing pattern to it. It was about 5mm wide. I pressurized the gel and forced it in the seam. I used a small flat-tipped screwdriver to hold it open a little. There was a good bit of excess glue that needed wiped off but I wanted to make sure I got it in deep enough. Then I used a vicegrip and leather (as not to mar up the wood) to hold it tight. Let it sit for 24hours though I doubt it needed that long. Granted, mine was wood and you're looking to do fiberglass but I've read on some forums it works well on both.

[Flem]

I think I would start by removing all the old finish. You will get a better idea of the repairs needed. The riser "crack", looks like it's in the finish. Also, it looks dirty. I would clean out that tip area for sure. A lot of crap can find its way into a crack that looks closed and then the best adhesive on the planet won't do you any good. Flush that out with your syringe and floss it with some strong polyester thread.

[San jacinto joe]

Thanks so much guys for the help. Yeah the bow was kinda dirty when I got it. The only thing I’ve done was wipe it down with a damp microfiber cloth with a little goo gone. But only the fiberglass. I avoided the tips and the wood. How would I safely clean the wood? I was hoping I would not have to do a total refinish on the bow. I was also wondering how to flush out those cracks? Just use the syringe and water? Would something like that possibly cause the wood to swell up? I really like the bow and this is all new to me. I’m just concerned I’ll screw it up and ruin It. The rest of the bow seems to be in pretty good shape. I hope this doesn’t mean the bow is done and just a wall hanger at this point 😖

[San jacinto joe]

So what would be the steps involved in doing a repair like this? I’d love to fix this bow if possible. I haven’t even tried to brace it or anything yet. I just wanted to fix these things before even thinking of stringing it up.

[Jeff Freeman]

I like to use this chair tight and it comes with a couple tiny little syringe size push ons for the end. It's cheaper it's just as runny as 420 and you can usually find it at Ace hardware store or other places like that  420 hard to find and very expensive.JF

[San jacinto joe]

Thanks Jeff. So it’s possible that it could bond the limb tips together if I make sure to clean inside the crack as much as I can?

[Jeff Freeman]

Pretty hard to clean inside the cracks or separations put tape on one side and everywhere else where you don't want the glue to run and start wicking it in. It's pretty darn runny. I was just doing one last night. It's going to go to fix for a lot of people. JF

[San jacinto joe]

Ok. thanks Jeff. I do have a local Ace hardware. Would you recommend using a small clamp or will it actually fill the void on it’s own ?

[Jeff Freeman]

You could use a clamp after you've run some in it but I would only use like a clothespin style nothing too tight.
Don't forget to tape up where you don't want glue, because it's going to run. And also use tape to keep it from running out the other side. JF

[San jacinto joe]

So I should probably lay the bow on it’s side with tape on the lower side. This should help the glue build up inside the crack. I can also buy 2 small clothes pin style clamps. That way I don’t accidentally apply to much pressure and risk snapping the fiberglass.

[Flem]

If you decide to clean the cracks, don't use water, use a fast evaporating solvent like ethanol or acetone. If you can open the crack a little and then while the tip is pointed down, get your tiny needle in and flush it. Run some white polyester sewing thread thru there and see if it comes out dirty and repeat. Neither of the adhesives mentioned (both CA) will adhere to dirt.

[Longcruise]

You can also prop it open a bit and blow it out with aerosol brake cleaner.  It's highly aromatic and drys up at a rate similar to acetone.

[San jacinto joe]

Ok.  use acetone or brake clean and some white polyester thread to clean out the crack so a CA glue can get the best bond possible. This might sound like a silly question but using those to clean out the cracks shouldn’t cause further laminate separation or anything right?

[San jacinto joe]

Hello everybody. Well I went ahead and got all the necessary supplies and decided to just go for it. It’s definitely tedious working with such incredibly thin glue. I managed to get them closed up pretty good from what I can tell with a magnifying glass. I let it sit overnight and will try a tiny bit more later today just to make sure I didn’t miss anything but so far so good. 👍