Test Bow from old Cedar Cladding

 I made up a pyrimid style bow (constant thickness, width tapered to a point) from a piece of the old cedar cladding. First try it drew to about 30# and the tip sheared off (there was a split in the wood there which I'd glued up. I spliced on a new tip and took 1.5" off each end and tried again.
It came back to about 26" (un-braced) at 32# before breaking at the same end. I videoed it all and it 's on my Youtube chanel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-G7hJW5HkY
Heres a pic of it alongside a wonky English Yew longbow that's just about ready for horn nocks. I'll get it up on tiller and check how it look first as its not bee
n worked on for over a month.

Soon be back!

 

I've got the re-roofing and cladding work done. Of courese there is loads of cleaning up to be done and whilst I've been doing that project other things have needed work.
Transformer for 12v lighting in the shower has failed. One sticking and one leaking tap. Flush in the upstairs loo was running non stop.... <sigh>
I've just tackled that last job. It's a flawed design which relies on the weight of water in the cistern to press the valve tightly sealed, but after a flush, there isn't enough weight to give a good seal and it leaks at the same rate as it's trying to fill. I took it apart and added a length of brass rod down the convenient tub that comes up the centre... that helps the initial seal and fixes it (for now).
I'm stacking all the old cladding round the back of the house and I can at last see the workshop floor.
The old cladding may be handy for bow experiments for light bows or maybe as a core wood. Failing that I'll make some planters.

Leather Stash and Roofing

 

I've got the roof done, just waiting on some cable clips to finish fixing the telecom line.. (I always seem to have (n-5) of any fixing/clip etc. Where n is the number needed!
Next job is the insulation and re-cladding. Meanwhile I've been having a bit of a tidy in the garage, replaced one dodgy shelf with some of the decent 18mm ply I had left over. I've been sorting out my leather stash, loads of old handbags, boots, bits of old leather

sofa, jackets etc. I've chucked the bits that were too small or poor quality and been cutting off the scraps and fittings from the bags and boots, that should create a bit more room. I don't chuck much away, as you never know when someone will want a yellow leather grip on a bow!

I also put some legs onto a big old slab of cherry (about 25" dia x 5.5" thick) to serve as a seat/table for the twin grand daughters who will be 2 at Chrismas

Compression vs Tension

 Following some discussion on the English Longbow Archers Facebook group I made this video of a simple experiment to show ... well watch it and see:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNyBr9HnVzk
Meanwhile the work on the porch is coming along and the weather seems set fair for the week so I'll try and get the rubber roofing glued down.
The short end wall has been virtually rebuilt and insulated, fascia has been added to the roof. It's keeping me busy!

A bit of a Hiatus

 Just in case you're wondering where I've been.
I'm taking a break while I insulate and re-roof the porch (insert your own automotive jokes here). When we moved in about 25 years ago I did a quick make-do job on it, but now the water is pooling badly and the felt is cracking up. I'll build it up with insulation board covered in 18mm ply with a much better drainage angle. The single leaf brick walls will get insulated on the outside and clad with cedar.
I've bought in the materials and the weather looks set fair. It should keep me busy for a week, then I'll finish off that wonky Yew ELB.

More Work on the Airshied

 I've tided up the battery mounting, replacing cardboard with aluminium sheet, made the contacts spring loaded and added a spring clip to stop it sliding out of the helmet! I've also taken off the outer shell of the helmet which doesn't really do anything except maybe stopping the filter bags snagging on stuff if you are working in a confined environment.
The unit now weighs a total of 1.58 lb against the original 2.4 lb which is a pretty significant improvement.
The battery life is a bit less, but I've measured the current draw(0.38A) and calculated it to be 2.95 hours which is fine for my usage, especially considering I have a second battery which I can just swap in.

Adjustment work and an Airshield Ventilated Mask

 I've been doing bits and pieces, a lady contacted me via Facebook, someone had suggested I could do what was required. She'd been given a gents bow which she liked but it had a big fat grip and inch markings painted on the back. She wanted a slimmer grip and it tidied up, she brought it over and I had a look, the tiller was a whisker off (lower limb weak), it had taken a bit of set and was generally tired. the grip had a brocade cover which I cut off revealing some wooden strips which had been glued on to bulk it out. I let her shoot some of my bows including the Chinese Repeating Crossbow and a little Hazel primitive. She even tried Twister which she could manage due to her having a short draw (24" if I recall correctly).
A week later I'd taken 1" off the lower limb and re-nocked it with a smaller tidier horn nock. I slimmed down the top nock a tad, but left its interesting shape. I did a new grip in black suede with a bit of padding under the back to round it a little and generally cleaned, sanded, tidied and refinished it. She was delighted with what I'd done and insisted on giving me a few quid and a couple of bottles of wine.
The next adjustment was taking between 5 and 10# off a boo backed yew I'd made for one of the guys at the club, I took a decent 5# off but didn't clean/sand it so he could try it out last Sunday. He managed it ok but felt a little more off would be good. A light rasp and then scraping has taken off another 2# so i reckon that should do it.

Meanwhile I invested in an Airshield Pro ventilated helmet/mask as I think the Yew dust was really irritating my respiratory tract, I'd been coughing a lot and it was effecting my sleep. The mask really seems to have helped, the cough has gone and I'm sleeping well.
It was a little uncomfortable so I've done a couple of modifications! I've padded the strap that contacts the back of the head (the top and front straps are already padded) and I've converted it to use an old camera battery (Lithium ion) which is much lighter for the same energy 20gram vs 200gram ! (The battery that cam with it was Nimh).
If it is comfortable and convenient to use, it will get used all the time, otherwise it's too easy to think "I'll just be doing a couple of minutes work, I won't bother with the mask"... then an hour and half later you've inhaled a load of yew dust. 
Another good point is that it doesn't fog up like my glasses did when using my old mask. There are some reflections off the visor, but once focusing on your work it's not noticeable. 
I made a video showing what I did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auYmniMP_hU