Saturday 20 June 2015

Nearly Finished

The cut on my finger isn't as bad as I'd feared, the finger nail took some of the force and stopped it going too deep, so I've managed to press on today.

The horn nocks are done but not finished and polished. 
The tips are slimmed a bit and blended in.
I've included a pic of before and after blending in the last 5-6" of tip, hopefully you can see the improvement.
There's a pic of the dreaded pegged knot that led to the cut finger.

It's ready to do final tillering. There is a temptation to reflex the upper limb tip to match the lower, but I want to leave it completely natural.

These are semi matched billets from the same tree, they are not from the same log like "sister" or "book matched " billets, but were chosen for their similar shape.
The Yew was cut in 2015:-
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/early-fathers-day-adventure.html

Here are some pics, lower one shows the view along the lower limb, you can see the splice and the odd sap wood heart wood sap wood stripe. 



The pic of the splice on the belly shows how I re-cut it.
I'd done the splice but not glued it... I wasn't happy with how one limb was slightly on the twist relative to the other, and there was too much reflex/back set. So... I glued back in the Vs of wood I'd cut out and re-cut one of the splices... it looks a bit of a patch work on the belly, but it's an honest job.
The splice on the back was left true. It's the back that's the important bit, as compression will hold the belly together.  The splice is shown from the back too.


The bow has been scraped and sanded a bit, once it has some Danish Oil on it, I think the colour will show more and it will be a very handsome bow. The recurved lower tip will be an interesting talking point too as it will torment those people who think they know the rules and regulations about the various definitions of "English Longbow". The reflex is entirely natural and as such is (to the best of my knowledge) permissible in all definitions.

I'll probably put a veg' tan leather grip on it, so the splice won't be visible. The bloke I'm making it for says he wanted a bow from a single stave... that's his choice. I'm sure I'll have no shortage of people interested in this bow.




2 comments:

  1. Nice looking bow Del. Did you halt the tillering process at 28" and what weight did it finally turn out at?

    John T. :o)

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  2. Not quite finished, I need to get it up on the tiller again, but my guess is about 50-55# at 29".
    Dunno if the guy I built it to suit will want it. Maybe one of the Walkern crew will fancy it... dunno it it will pull to 30".
    Dunno, what people are after. Feeling a tad jaded... couple of days at work and I'll be rearing to go.

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