Visit

I had a visit from a young chap today, he's into making bows and doing stuff which is refreshing these days. We got through a good deal of work trying out my various bows, having a go with a drawknife and marking out a couple of bows on some seasoned wood. One old half of a Hazel log had 90 degrees of twist on it but we managed to run a string line down it and rough out a bow shape on the bandsaw. A bit of work with axe and drawknife resulted in a promising looking stave. I found a bit of Yew too, it was the other half of the log that became a 130# Warbow, it was odd stuff with no clear differentiation between heart and sapwood. A couple of nasty knots meant it was no good for a warbow, but we marked it out about 30mm square at the grip and 20 mm square at the tips. I let him run it through the bandsaw producing another reasonable stave. He's been making bows from boards of unknown hardwoods and offcuts of flooring boards etc, so from the tree will provide some more experience and another dimension to his bow making.
It was a hot day and we had the shave horse outside, we even managed a quick walk in the woods tree spotting.
staves
I was ready for a cat nap by the time I'd driven him to the station.
It good to see young guys learning the craft and to give them a hand honing their skills. When I was that age there was no internet and no one I could learn from. The local library had some books and D G Quicks had a shop fairly near which was some help. There is so much more information these days which is great as it means these crafts won't be lost.