The silver solder I'd ordered on line turned up this morning. It worked a treat, I cleaned up the steel parts, mixed the powder flux with a drop of water and applied it to the mating surfaces, reassembled it and heated it. the silver solder flowed beautifully. Like a lot of joining jobs, be it gluing, soldering or welding cleanliness and preparation are the key.
I branded the arrow pass with my bowyers mark and I think it looks about right.Now that the mark is well and truly out in the public domain I'm asserting my right to claim it as my logo and trademark and as such it is thus Copyright.
The original publication of it as my mark being here:- http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/big-bow-detail-and-hickory-challenge.html
Here are some pics, including one of me with the bow to give an idea of how big it is and the amount of set its taken (bear in mind the stave had a little deflex initially).
It's had a couple of coats of Danish oil and it will get 2 more every day until it's had about 6 then a wipe of beeswax polish.
I can't wait to see how it actually shoots...
FREAKING COOL. I think it's important to mark your work. Hopefully the owners of some of your work will be owned and passed down to people that respect your weapons for what they are, and down the line people will be able to trace your bows back to their maker. I wonder if dating them would be appropriate too? I had a guy specifically request that I add "my bowyers mark" on a bow once, and this kinda forced me to come up with my own. I just took a note from J R R Tolkien, and combined my intials into something or other, which I think you did as well. (My name is Daniel Tidwell). I got an easy one, because I got a cross symbol from the " T ". Mine looks kinda like one of those 3 musketeers swords, which I guess is kinda dumb, as it's on a bow. I had another guy make fun of it, saying it looked like an old greek christian symbol called a "Chi Ro", and told me I should probably "think that one over" or something like that, haha.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Over the years, I've fiddled with various marks, but I like this one best for warbows. Usually I just write the poundage/length date and my initials. I've not done that on this one yet as it needs a few more coats of Danish Oil yet.
ReplyDeleteWell yours looks a lot better than mine. Looks nice. I use a wood burner for mine, the kind that heats up and you are supposed to do designs in wood with. I still haven't had it in me to write on one of my bows yet. I'd like to, but I have such horrid hand writing, I think it would look like a 2 year old signed the bow if i did it. Have you ever seen an old longbow from the 50s or so, where the weight and draw length were stamped into the bow somehow? I have always wondered what they used to do that.
ReplyDeleteI've seen some really old longbows (Victorian style) but I was too busy looking at the belly patches and the tiny horn nocks to notice the marks! There were quite a few with Yew backs put onto Yew bellies from differnt staves. Really interesting to see how they did things, it gave me ideas and confidence to do more patching and laminating etc. There was one bowyer who made all his top nocks into Parrot heads! A bit surreal.
ReplyDeleteI noticed as I was doing some tryout branding, as the wood scorches it seems to go slippery, easy to skid and spoil the brand.
Well done derek cracking result, rgds Adrian
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