Originally posted by Krex1010:
Sounds good ky, I want to take the grip off and just shoot it bare for a while.
that's a good, if not best, way to do it. remove the glued on grip. try some naphtha (ligher fluid) at first and if that don't do, get you some acetone (wear a rubber glove) and rub it where the grip was to get off that stubborn contact cement. then wipe it down with naphtha or alky and dry off.
get in a few shots and let yer bow hand tell ya where wood gets removed. then set the bow in a padded vise and have at it with a 6" rasp. just keep gripping the handle and rasping away a bit at a time. i took one down a huge amount, made a very slim grip with a small throat for the minimum amount of bow hand torque before, during and after the shot.
when the new shape feels right, go over all the rasping with a progression of sandpaper grits, maybe from 60 to 320. optionally finish off with 0000 steel wool.
there are lotsa good ways to quickly refinish that handle wood. the fastest and by far the easiest is to use min-wax gloss wipe on polyu, or any variety of clear coat sprays (mask off the rest of the bow b4 spraying). i did my 7 lakes longbow with helmsman spar varnish. a tough finish can be done the massey way - mix up some slow set epoxy in a cup, dribble in some acetone until the mix turns from a goo to a wet slurry. using a rubber glove and a clean piece of cotton t-shirt, wipe that onto the handle area. allow to cure, buff with 0000 steel wool, do it again. i usually do 3 coats max.
main thing is that you'll basically have a very custom bow that'll fit yer bow hand like a ... glove. :cool:
Topic: Bear montana (Read 1078 times)
