Steaming pile of Dog poo

[Flem]

The last time I did an ASL build along, it garnered less attention than said topic.
But here I go anyways. Hope this satisfies the skeptics.
So this, Too be Bow, was inspired by an old Mexican Lemmon wood board that was given to me by a Mexican furniture maker about 30yrs ago. It was no good for a board bow and I could never bring myself to cut it up for any woodworking project, so its been collecting dust. Recently I had an idea for a tropical themed bow using the Lemmon wood for the limbs and a vintage Teak cutting board, that was also a gift, for the handle. The glass will be a bright yellow/green chartreuse like the Degame foliage. If nothing else, it will be unique! (weird)

Starting from the beginning;

Working on a puzzle today. I'm determined to make a riser out of, what was once a cutting board. Done stacks before, but not stacked and staggered. Thinking one over two, rule of thumb?

[Flem]

Ha! Puzzle solved. I got enough for two risers and no splices. Had to cheat a little and use a piece of lam wood for the bases. Only one piece of Teak was long enough for a base piece.
Its fun to make useful things out of things that look useless.

[Flem]

Cold mornings are a good excuse to do fun indoor projects. You know things are desperate when sanding is fun

Thought I would keep at this riser since I'm in the mood. Not a huge fan of stacked risers on an Asl and fat glues lines make me cringe. Going thru the grits to 400 and I'll orient the grain for flow. Trying to make it look as natural as possible.

[Flem]

This might not have a wide appeal, but I'm liking the chartreuse with the woods
Lemmon wood has a nice luster sanded to 400 and coated with shellac.

[Roy from Pa]

 

[Bvas]

I like it 

Flem, you making your own glass to get that color?

[Stagmitis]

Keep it comin Flem!

[Mad Max]

 
Why is it Steaming ?

[Appalachian Hillbilly]

Keep the pics coming. Interested to see how this comes out!

[Longcruise]

Looking good 👍

[Flem]

I like it 

Flem, you making your own glass to get that color?

Thats a yes, unless somebody know where I can get some ugly glass

Why is it Steaming ?

Dog poo is not real exciting unless you have a visual or olfactory reference

To give fair warning, I am going to break some rules. If you are a by the book person or an authoritarian, this thread might cause seizures. I am also going to make this pic heavy, cause a picture is worth a thousand words and what would you prefer, pictures or a thousand words?

So lets break some rules!

This is the last of my G-1. Some of the best epoxy I have ever used. Its also over 20yrs old!
Since this is a build with vintage wood, I thought why not use vintage glue? The resin was crystalized and the hardener was gelled, so I thought I better get them back to a liquid state in some hot water.

I measure all my epoxy by weight and for this riser I mixed up about 15g, which is twice as much as needed, but wanted some extra to check the color in the cured resin.

Here it is all bagged and in my mini oven.

This is the third time I have used this reflective ducting as an oven and I really like it. When the inside temp was up to 150deg, the outside of the foil was under 70deg! Heat gun is set on second lowest temp and the housing near the tip stayed in the 80-90deg range

[Mad Max]

How long in the oven?

[Flem]

That was fun, think I'll break another rule. How about some crazy clamping pressure?
I set my vacuum pump to 15in of mercury, it will pull 25in at my elevation (4000'), but thats overkill for this glue up.
Quality supersedes quantity and in this case vacuum, with its even 360deg pressure and air extraction is very effective.

How much pressure is 15hg you ask??  7.3psi
Here it is fresh out of the bag

Glue lines look pretty good

I think I broke another rule regarding cook time. G-1 is a 24hr cure@70deg, but I only cook for 1hr@ 150deg+
Here is the extra colored resin, pulled out at 45min. Its rock hard.

Solo cups start to melt at 150deg.
I'm really liking this color! Looks a bit more yellow in person.
Here is a tip for monitoring temperature, drill a hole in and put your thermocouple inside a similar sized piece of material to the one you are cooking to get an accurate reading where it matters most.

[Roy from Pa]

 

[Buemaker]

Brave man and I like your mini oven 

[Appalachian Hillbilly]

I like the vacuum bag idea!

[Flem]

Did not get much done today, got my booster yesterday and my damn arm was real sore again.
I did rough out the riser

Grain flows pretty good, almost OK for under clear. Don't know if I will ever use Teak again. I love the color, but its got open grain and seems brittle. I'm not worried about its strength, or the glue's. I took a mallet and beat the crap out of the off cuts. No glue failures, just wood. Pretty good for 22 yr old epoxy.

[Flem]

Sliced and ground the Lemmon wood lams. Ended up with three pairs.

 This bow will only have two pairs, for a stack of .410 It's heavy wood, but it feels snappy. I decided to add an uncoupling membrane between the two pairs. It acts as a shear plane to reduce the effect of the glue line. My desire is to establish the shear plane(glue line) as close to what would be the neutral plane in the stack. It's only .008 thick, but it also works as a vibration damper, which can be helpful with heavy limbs.

Tough to get any fetching pictures of an ASL in pieces, not that I did not try

This guy must have seen the topic name

[Roy from Pa]

Looking good Flem.

What's the flies name?

[Buemaker]

Looks good. Is that Lemonwood the real deal from Cuba and what is that membrane made of?