Busy busy busy

Maybe it's the time of year but I seem to be doing 101 things at once. Must try and finish 'em in a logical order.

I'm making an arrow tapering/barrelling jig from angle iron. Putting horn nocks on the Hazel Warbow. Turning up some flight arrow points which entailed buying a collet holder and set of collets for my little lathe, they turned up from China after a week or so, excellent value for money... dunno how they can do it, mind I then needed to make a draw bar and spanner for the collet holder D'oh.
Not to mention the gardening and getting the silt out of the little top pond, which is one of those glorious messy jobs that brings out your inner child... mud and water on a sunny day!
Here are some pics.

The arrow jig can be adjusted for different tapers, the inner vertical faces of the angle iron will have sand paper stuck on with double sided tape, or maybe wrapped round the ends and held magnetically. The arrow shaft is held in the electric drill and fed into the gap. I'll make a perspex top to stop the arrow whipping up and out... well that's the theory.

While I was tinkering around making arrow heads I tried the bamboo arrow shaft that I'd reduced in diameter, I suspected I'd over done it so I tried it before I wasted further time fletching it. It flew well, but flexed too much when it hit the target and splintered... yes I wore glove and bracer as a safety precaution!

The lathe shot also shows the excellent new toolpost that my mate Mick the Blacksmith made for me, it makes tool changes less frequent, easier and holds 'em better. The collet holder and set of 10 collets from 1mm-10mm only cost about £23 ! (3mm collet in the holder and the 10mm one standing up they are things of almost sculptural beauty). To make the collet spanner I bought a plumbing spanner for doing up compression joints from Toolstation for about £2.50 opened up the jaws a whisker and sawed off the end I didn't want.
The drawbar is some threaded rod with a nut welded on and a bush which I turned on the lathe. All good practice as I've not had any real instruction in lathe useage so I'm learning on the job.
For those who don't know what a collet is, it's like a miniature chuck for holding small items much more firmly than a 3 jaw chuck. The 3 jaw is removed from the lathe, the collet holder replaces it, being drawn tightly into place with the draw bar which is screwed in from the back end of the head stock.

The little top pond is just above the large rock in the centre of the pic, we have a waterfall from there, the top pond  acts as a silt trap.

Finally the top nock glued on to the Warbow before shaping, you can see it's fairly slim and will give the bow nicely tapered tips when it's all blended in.

Talking of sculptural beauty, the sculpture I showed a little while back is in a show at the Gibberd Gallery, has already been sold ! ...
which is nice.

So, other than the broken arrow and all the unfinished projects I'm doing well... better stop chatting and get on with it!

Update:- I've had it back to about 29" at full brace, it's about 83#,

the tiller looks a little stiff handles, but that's intentional as there is a big twist/dip there. It also looks odd as the right limb looks much thicker, that's cos there is a lot of white wood showing and the garage door is open flooding it with daylight from that side. The tille rcritique picture allows for the stiff/concave grip by treating each limb individually, you can see the lower (left) limb has a slightly larger arc, in keeping with the lower limb being left a tad stiffer.
You have to bear in mind the unbraced shape of the stave too.
It's all down to some fine scraping, sanding and making a string... then pulling it the extra few inches. Have to see if I can get fit enough to shoot it too.

My magnets turned up this morning, I can hardly believe it... I clicked on "buy" about mid day yesterday, I can play with some arrow tapering.
So much to do!