Wednesday 14 April 2010

Fallen Timber

I'm doing some repair work on one of the sculptures at the Gibberd Garden (mending the bird table which houses two lovely Bog Oak Crows). The work was more extensive than realised, I could use some treated turned fence poles or search for suitable wood (We'd alread cut some Ash in the Autumn, but are still short of a few bits).
I went for a stroll in the woods, sure enough there were 2 huge Oaks down, entirely unsuitable, but they had also bought down a dead Maple? It had no bark remaining but was still very sound. I found a length just about right 45" at 3" diameter. I was tempted to spend some time freeing up some Hazel which had been pinned down by the Oaks, but the more I looked around the more I realised that nature can look after itself, a lot of the Hazel (and Hawthorn)was sprouting from stuff which had been knocked over many years since. I s'pose the classic is the huge Willows along the river, they are always coming down and then sprouting up from the fallen trunks.
Meanwhile back at the bows...I've thinned down a piece of Ash to between 3 and 4mm for the backing of my experimental Cherry/Ash bow, by clamping it to a bit of 2"x2" and working it with a rasp.
I unashamedly mix imperial and metric measurements as mm are v good for smaller dimensions. I'm probably going to use hide glue to attach it to the Cherry belly, as:-
a)It's natural.
b)I have some.
c)I used it on the Ash/Cherry miniature.
The alternative is some 2hour epoxy whuch I used on my Asiatic recurve (Fibreglass laminations over a Maple core), I havn't written up that bow, mainly as it was using up some old fibreglass laminations (left over from my crossbow days). I can post some pics if anyone wants to see it.
Better get back to making the dinner!

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