Wednesday 7 September 2011

Good News, Bad News.

The heat treating has certainly stiffened up the bow, but the bad news is some of the old lateral bend has come back due to the heat treating allowing the wood to relax a bit back to it's former shape.
Ideally one would heat treat and bend at the same time with the bow clamped to a form.
Well, that's ok in theory if the bow is nice and straight and you are just putting in simple reflex.
With a tricky shaped stave like this a bit of messing about back and forth is usually required.
Anyhow I have some other things to get on with while the bow settles down again.
I'm a bit more confident about it now as it's definitely stronger, I could barely get the string on it.
I think I can afford to loose an inch and a half of each limb if necessary too.
I'll have another go at it on Friday.

2 comments:

  1. It seems like such an organic process, with every minute process effecting every other process. The Chaos of bow making, now where did I leave that butterfly...

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  2. Yeah, it's not always so tricky if you start with a nice clean stave. This sort of thing is a bit of a challenge and a good learning exercise. My prob' is I keep forgetting what I learned on the last bow... D'oh!

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