After getting the handles roughed out, it is time to start on the limbs. I decided on curly etimoe and Mexican kingwood for the veneers. All the pieces of the limbs get laid out, ready for assembly. The glass is roughed up with 36 grit where the overlays will be glued on.
Steve gets the honors on glue duty. Watching someone who has glued up countless limbs, it looks easy, but when you try it for the first time it is like trying to smear honey on fly paper. It wants to stick to EVERYTHING!
After the pair of limbs are glued up, they get wrapped in 2 layers of 18" wide food service plastic wrap and put into the forms.
Inflate with 70 pounds of air, set the timer for 3 1/2 hours and start on cutting out the buffalo horn tips.
If you ever want to clear the shop of unwanted guests, try cutting on some buffalo horn with the bandsaw. It will do the trick, gaurenteed! It smells like a spontanious combustion at the beauty parlor. Aussie Shane was gracious enough to send me up a pair of Asiatic buffalo horns from Australia. They made some really pretty tips. After cutting a few strips free of the horn, I used some Smooth-On to laminate two strips of red glass, sandwiching a piece of satinwood to the horn.