2024 What did you do today

[Mad Max]

Hey you guy's Bue has a mess on the floor, It's always clean.   

Yes it has waves.   

[Pat B]

Very nice elm staves, Bue. Hickory I've cut has a similar surface under the bark.

[Jon Lipovac]

Finished up a new form that doesn’t have nearly the preload my last experimental form had that was coming in so heavy. The old form had 3/4”of preload in the butt wedge section. On this one I relaxed that butt wedge preload to 5/16” transitioning to a flat 4” section before it starts to reflex towards the base of the curl.

I made this one out of mdf for flatness and a couple of 1/4 plywood sandwiched in the middle. I then sealed the whole thing with water thin CA. It’s rock solid now. If it works good, I’ll seal the top of the form the same way.

Also, trying out these small steel tipped applicators for the CA. So far they have been super nice to use and seal up really good.
(12) of them on Amazon for $8

[Buemaker]

Looks good. May I ask which glue you used for the plywood/mdf combo? For the «stop» steel pin I have been using Kenny’s idea with a small steel spring from a ball point pen in the hole.

[Jon Lipovac]

Bue, I just use Tightbond 111 to laminate the mdf and plywood.

[Burnsie]

What did I do today?  Made some yellow shavings of course.

[kennym]

Picked up 200 bd feet of 1.75” walnut

[dbeaver]

Got back to work on my maple recurve selfbow after a long rest post coal firing.  I had to steam one limb again for tip alignment as the firing process returned the limb to its more natural orientation.

Im being extremely patient tillering this one, I'm trying to limit set as much as possible through careful tillering and multiple and possibly various heatings of the belly.

[Buemaker]

I might be a little Coco Loco when it comes to glueing up stuff, but so be it. I wanted a glue that could take heat for use in bow forms, when in the heat box. I bought this German white glue which they claim can take heat up to 90 degree Celsius before glue lines come apart. I do not heat laminated bows to more than about 50 degree Celsius, so I put a couple of test pieces in the oven at 60 gegree Celsius for a few hours. They held up just fine when breaking apart with a hammer in a vice. So I am good to go.

[dbeaver]

Got some more work done on my 'study on patience' bow.

I think I have it bending pretty good.  She's on a low brace of about 4 inches. Gotta make a string up at this point but now that I have it bending most of the way I'm going to heat treat each limb with a heat gun, and then I'm going to coal fire it once more on a slight reflex form.

[dbeaver]

She's been over the coals again, and this time it was after using the heat gun to adapt the bow onto the reflexed form.  I've been keen on adapting my coal firing process over the coarse of blowing up a few bows on the tiller tree.  I've been using an infrared thermometer to keep an eye on even coal bed temps, and I'm finding consistent temps that I like on the bow belly when i flip the form to check. I've been slowly adjusting this temp higher and I'm getting a really good deep and even heating when the bow belly is reading between 320-360.  I had maybe less than five minutes where the belly got around 400.   I compared the bow to my failed attempts and the back has not cooked through in a way that makes me think of failure.   The blackened maple is glass smooth after hardening. She now sits to acclimatize. Look at the nice reflex added since the original tillering.

[Pat B]

That's going to be a very nice bow. Patience grasshopper! 

[DVSHUNTER]

That thing looks slick man!.

[Stagmitis]

Good job Dbeaver!
Tempering is an artform unto itself- Too much the material becomes brittle-too little there is no benefit. Majic when you get it right!
After years of trial an error I finally built a flame oven that I can get a perfect temper for my bamboo.

[dbeaver]

Thanks for the encouragement fellas.   Hoping for no crunchies when I pull on her again next week.

[Buemaker]

Glued up bow form blank.

[Longcruise]

55 mph winds in "the shop" today.  Ready for some heavy duty material removal on the swap bow riser but it involves too much dust and debris for indoor work.  just straightening up my work areas and making some strings.

[Jon Lipovac]

I’ve always struggled with my initial string grooves being even on both sides startout with a chainsaw file so I made this jig last night for the table saw. Still need to tweak it a little but it shows promise. I put two grinding disks on it and rounded them off with an angle grinder. Groves come out shaped well and just need a little file work to soften the edges to put a string on it for tillering and adjusting.

[Smguinnip]

pretty ingenious time saver right there.

[Buemaker]

What I like very much about this site is that there is always good new ideas coming along. That nock grinder, me like very much.