Making a Bow

(Worked on May 18, 2009)

To finish off the bow, I sanded it using 100 grit, then 320 grit, then 400 grit sandpaper. I followed each sanding with a wipe-down of the bow using a microfiber cloth to get all the sawdust off. After I was done sanding, I used Howard Feed-N-Wax wood preserver, made of orange oil and beeswax. I followed the instructions to wipe it on, leave it for twenty minutes, and then wipe off. The resulting color change was very appealing- I loved it. (more…)

(Worked on May 17,18, 2009)

What makes a bow a bow is the tillering process. The purpose of tillering is to get the bow to bend evenly, with the right pull poundage at the right draw. To tiller, one usually uses a tillering stand, something I’d have to build, since I don’t own one. However, I could achieve a similar effect by propping up a board in the Workmate clamp, and using two c-clamps on two other boards to keep the bow from falling off the apparatus. By pulling the string down to the outer board’s edge, I could stand back and see how it bent, and see which parts of the limbs I needed to sand. There are many problems that can arise while tillering, common problems including hinges, of which I had one. It took quite a long time, and it was extremely frustrating, but I was eventually able to get it to the point where I could bend it and brace it and the bow would bend how I wanted it to. (more…)

(Worked on May 16,17,18, 2009)

To make the handle easier to hold, I used the belt sander to take off 1/4″ from each side of the handle. After I did this however, the edges were still quite sharp to hold, so I sanded a tiny bit off of the outer edges with my sander. For the innner edges that would be against the palm of the hand, I measured 1/4″ more in from each side, and sanded a diagonal edge in, so the handle would be more rounded to hold. Until the very end, I was uncertain about the nocks. I was unsure of whether they would be able to hold the string once I’d glued them on. However, I decided to go ahead and try them out anyways. I cut off ~1/2″ blocks off of the maple board using the miter saw and the coping saw. I used a lot of glue to glue them on- at the time, I didn’t understand why it needed so much more than the riser needed. When I asked my father, he explanined that it was because I was trying to glue endgrain on, which absorps more glue than the side grain. Using a saber saw, I sawed off two more pieces with side grain on the side to be glued, just in case the pieces I’d clamped on wouldn’t work, but fortunately, about an hour later, after I’d removed the clamps, the endgrain pieces stayed on the bow well. I freehand shaped them using the belt sander- I had a vauge idea of what I wanted, so I just sanded until the maple nocks looked like how I wanted them to, and were the right size for the string. To cut the grooves for the string, I used the rasp I bought from WoodCraft, since the City Mill rasp was too large for the job. To get the right angle, I measured to the center of the 1.5″ long nock, and 1/4″ above it. I drew a line through the center of the nock, and angled my rasp from one center line to the other. I rasped until I felt that the grooves were the right size for the string.

Time Spent: ~3hrs

(Worked on May 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 2009)

I decided to plane down the belly- which worked very well. However, once I’d finished planing down to my guidelines, I realized that my bow still didn’t bend. Despite the large amount of wood I’d shaved off, the bow was still quite rigid. Another small problem was that the plane couldn’t get all the way to the end of the belly near the riser, since the plane ran into the riser. I probably should have planed the bow before I’d put the riser on, but I figured I needed to test the bow’s bend with the riser on, since I didn’t want the wood to warp too much where the riser was supposed to go, and I wanted to see how the bow bent with the riser on. To solve the problem, I decided to use the Stanely SurForm rasp that I’d decided not to use for planing down the sides. The rasp worked wonderfully on the wood- perhaps because it had more of a surface to grip to after I’d planed down part of the wood, perhaps because I was more motivated to make it work, since if it didn’t, I didn’t know what I was going to use to shave the belly wood off. I also used it to scrape down the handle on the belly side- I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do to thin it out on the sides to make it easier to use. However, despite the rasp working for removing wood, it was difficult and it took a long time. A few days into my struggles, my parents came home with a new purchase- a Craftsman belt sander. This made my work go much more quickly, but the process was still long and difficult, as taking wood off evenly with the belt sander was much more difficult than taking it off with the plane, or even the rasp. I kept floor tillering the wood until it bent. For the string, I decided that it needed to be finished soon, even if I didn’t know exactly how big the loop needed to be- so I just estimated a size, and proceeded to braid the rest of the string.

Time Spent: many hours

(Worked on May 9, 2009)

Two days later, I removed the clamps on the riser- the wood glue held well, which I checked by trying to pull the two pieces apart (I wasn’t aware of wood glue’s strength). For the string, I had read on a website with a guide on how to make a Flemish bowstring that the author that  had measured out his string using his own height, standing tall with his arm up. I tried it, but I turned out to be a little short for the job, so I had my father, who is ~6ft tall measure it out for me. I used 7 strands of each color, 14 strands total. To braid the string, one braids it as one would braid rope- twist the strands one way, and twist the two pieces in the opposite direction. I only got a couple of inches in before I realized that I didn’t know how large I should make the loop- so I put a twist tie on the end and stopped braiding. The strands were waxed, so they stuck together well.

Time Spent: ~45min

(Worked on May 7, 2009)

The next step on my bow was to thin it down, so it could bend. I decided to make the ends 3/4″, based on the “Bow Building for Poor People and Apartment Dwellers” “Red Oak Board Bow Build Along”. I drew a straight line from where I planned to have the ends of the riser to where the 3/4″ marks were. Between the three types of wood I had to choose from, I decided to use my maple board for the riser and the nocks, since I it was darker than the red oak, and I thought it would have nice contrast. I measured out 9″ on the board and the bow, and 5″ on the bow, to see where I was planning on tapering the handle to. I cut the maple board using the miter box to 9″, and clamped it using c-clamps onto the belly of the bow using Gorilla Wood Glue, which I bought on my first trip to Home Depot. The instructions on the glue said to leave the wood clamped for at least 24 hours, so I left the bow for the night.

Time Spent: ~1hr30min

(Worked on May 2,3, 2009)

Despite my first shopping trip to Home Depot, I was still lacking in a lot of the necessary materials to make my bow and string. To remedy this, I went to three stores- first, The Island Archer, then on another day, City Mill and WoodCraft. At The Island Archer, I picked up two rolls of bowstring material, and a roll of serving string. I didn’t know what kind of bowstring material I wanted, but they only had one kind, so I picked up blue and black rolls. Turns out, after a quick Google search of “Brownell & Company, Inc.” (the name on the roll), that B-50 bowstring, (the type I bought) is the type the company listed for traditional bows, which is what my bow is (in a way). My next shopping trip was to pick up a rat-tail rasp to cut the nocks at the end of my bow. At City Mill, I found a GreatNeck 6″ Round File, but I decided I needed a thinner rasp, so I went to WoodCraft. At WoodCraft, I was able to find a 160mm round needle rasp, which was much thinner. I also bought a handle for the rasp, as it came without one. Both rasps I bought were tapered, which I thought might be a problem, but it turned out to be a good thing. At City Mill, I also bought some bolts and nuts and washers to make my tillering stand.

Time Spent: ~1hr20min