Archer's Sallet

I've been modifying a repro' archer's sallet that I was given as a present years ago. It's too big and the brow isn't low enough, it's more of a shallow dish than a deep bowl. (see first pic with eye line marked in black). Anyway it's an excuse to use my new welder.
The game plan is to remove the nice leather liner, cut a slot across above the brow, bend the brow down and welding in a plate. I'll also cut up vertically above the nose and take out a wedge of material and close up the gap. I made a block shaped like my head to support it while panel beating it, I've also bought a small panel beating dolly of E-bay.
The work is progressing and I cut out the wedge and squeezed the sides in with a big sash clamp (and some heat and thumps with a mallet), I then tack welded it to keep it in place.
The 2nd pic shows the tack weld and how much I've lowered the brow.

Leather Grip

After shooting the 90# Yew bow to get some arrows through it (ok I was prob' only pulling it to about 28" so nearer 80#) I went back to my 70# but noticed it was jarring my hand. Now people talk of "Hand shock" and they often talk about the bow  being too heavy at the tips or poorly tillered... In my opinion that rarely the case.
Why was the 90# ok but the 70# jarring? The big difference is the grip The 90# is made from a stave with a naturally rounded back, also, due to the big

knot at the side of the grip, I allowed extra thickness there. The result is a big well rounded grip. By contrast the 70# is Ash backed Yew and the Ash back was cut flat on a bandsaw, ok the edges are slightly rounded. Basically a flat back has corners that jar the knuckles or bones of the hand.
To improve matters I added some thick leather to the back which was carved and rasped to a nice curve. I then added a leather grip over that. The bow feels much smoother to shoot and hopefully I'll give it a good work out on Sunday.

The bow had never been properly finished and the grain of the Ash had raised a lot. I sanded with 120 grit and gave it a wipe of Danish oil, suddenly the bow went from looking like a scruffy old workhorse to a gorgeous shiny thoroughbred.

Video of fitting the leather grip here :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4ibiymsESQ

Yew Bow Detail

 

I've finished the replacement bow, and after checking with the customer it's at a whisker under 90# @ 31".
What was ostensibly a very clean stave revealed a multitude of knots and features , mostly fairly easy to deal with. What can happen is that a small twig or branck gets snapped off and grow over leaving clean looking sapwood but with the dead knot lurking underneath. Often the telltale sign is a bulge in the sapwood or a patch of discolouration in the wood as you work it down.
Enough chat...pictures!

Pair of Yew Staves

 The last bow I made came out under weight (72# instead of 80#) due purely to impatience when trying to reduce it from 85#. The customer likes the bow, but would like me to make anothre as well, ironically he wants 85# ! (if only he'd said that in the first place).
Anyhow, I was sorting through my staves and found a couple of marginal ones probably better suited to 60 pounders. I looked further and found two gorgeous half logs of English Yew, on closer inspection I saw they were the from the same log, which was about 3 1/2" diameter when I sawed it in August 2019. I roughed them down a bit to about 2" x 2" square to better see any problems. The better one is real warbow material, the other has some knots which will either fall off the side of the stave as it is worked down or will be filled or avoided.

However there is one big knot on the side of the bow at the grip.
Knots on the side aren't too much of a worry, especially when the sapwood is sound on the back and the actual belly is solid. They need filling though, else they could be a weak point and simply collapse. I was careful to excavate any loose, unsound material in the knot, which left just a rounded end of solid wood. I packed epoxy mixed withYew sawdust all around that end and filled the cavity. The filled knot is shown, not the prettiest feature, but it should do the job. I've filled bigger cavities than that on 90# bows with no problem. The are some other knots and one that goes through the sapwood, it's about 4mm diameter, and is about 10" from one end. I can leave a little extra width there to ensur ethat there is plenty of sapwood to take the tension.

First Time Out This Year

 I felt I was going stir crazy and needed to get out, so I went roving with the lads (old duffers) at Boyton Cross. I took a Yew bow that I've been working on, it was a bit of a forgotten bow which I think I'd made about a year a go as a try out for someone to see if they could manage the weight before making them something else. Anyway, someone contacted me wanting 80# @ 31" so I tried it on the tiller and it was 80# @ 26"and I've been working it down slowly over the last week. It was about 85#@30" so i thought I'd give it a work out... mind I've not shot for months and I was struggling, probably only got it back to about 29"
It was good to get out, fresh air, exercise, a tot of black cherry rum before we started and a couple of lovely frangipane cakes midday. As my mate JT said it's turning into a drinking club with an archery problem!
I'll try the bow on the tiller later today and see if it's settled in a bit.
All the work on the bow is on the You tube channel of course (Del Cat)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSTxFV0D62w
Update:- The bow is finished now, see pics.

Yew Logs & Re-backing a Bow

 I got a message from one of the guys at the club, he'd aquired two yew logs (he'd put the word out amongs his various friends/contacts etc). They'd only been cut two days ago so were in good condition. It was a right struggle running them through the bandsaw as they were very heavy and full of sap.
I modified my 'A' frame roller support, to make it more stable which helped a bit, and I ended up having to fiddle around cleaning and adjusting the bandsaw a few

times. I got through about half way with the shorter fatter log and had to finish it off splitting it with wedges. The big problem with logs is that being round they can try to rotate and push the blade off line and make the cut wander.
One of the other guys from the club had a bamboo backed bow where the boo was lifting as a big wide splinter, it was also showing roughness and tiny cracks at every node where the bamboo had been takn down too much in my opinion.

It was an odd bow Bamboo, Ipe and Lemonwood, why have Ipe as a core wood? It is very heavy and works best in compression and as such should IMO be on the belly. The bow was about 60#@30" and the guy wanted it to be increased by 5-10# if possible. Another quirk of this bow was that the bamboo was very thick and rather rounded on the back. In fact the cross section of the bow was rather oval. I decided the best way to reback it was to remove most of the bamboo, but don't go right down to the Ipe, this saves me having to clean up past the old glue line. It also allows an increase of draw weight. I got the new backing done and glued up, clamping the bow down onto one of my forms that has a hint of reflex at each tip. The result was pretty good, with a little spare draw weight allowing me to re-tiller, I got it to 72#@29" then cleaned it up and called it done. The bow was now pretty much straight where it had some set before, it was also about 2.5mm narrower at the grip which sholud make it shoot better. the cross section is a bit more like an inflated square now with a lightly rounded belly. I took a good deal of lemonwood off the belly, which would have exposed nice fresh wood and also brought the Ipe nearer to the belly where it could be more effective. There is very little lemonwood left near the tips. The bow was returned to its owner in time for a rove on Sunday and he was very pleased with the result.
The arrow on the left edge of the picture shows the line between the old bamboo and the new backing (the white string rather confuses the image as it runs along the lemonwood belly)

Random New Year Stuff

 I seem to have loads of projects on the go all at once. I'm working on a Elm Bow, but first I had to replace a corroded and leaky mixer tap in the kitchen which is always a longwinded job.
Quiz question for the viewers at home. Do the flexible hose tails on a new tap have compatable fittings with where the old ones connected?
(spoiler alert... no they don't)

Having done that I'm trying to make space in the garage for my nice new blue MIG welder that I got for Christmas, it works a treat and is nice and light. I'll be scrapping the old stick welder, that my brother gave me years ago, which he'd been given in turn, which weighs a ton (no one I know wants it... If you are close to Harlow it's free to anyone who turns up!). The welder came in a nice box made of stiff board which was made of two sheets of card with cardboard honey comb inbetween. The base of the box being thin ply. I'm cutting the box down to a better size as it no longer needs loads of packing foam. I could have made a new box, but it's interesting material to work with. I'm just butt joining everything together then wrapping the edges/corners with 2 layers off stiff paper (from inside a roll of Christmas wrapping paper) applied with pva glue, it may seem a bit perverse, but it's rather fun... a bit like the papier mache you did as kids, but this actually works 'cos it's decent paper, decent glue and I now have the skill and patience. Also I'm no longer the youngest in a troupe of siblings who has no idea what's going on!

I've got a few projects line up for the mig welder, one of which is to extend the roller support that I use whe running logs through the bandsaw. It's not quite tall enough or stable enough and rather than supporting the end of the log it usually ends up falling over. It's basically an "A "frame and I'll extend the legs to give it a wider base and raise the apex.
The garage is cluttered up with the TV that conked out, the old welder and a load of scrap that needs to go to the tip. I need to go to a carpet shop and get a cardboard tube in which to pack the wonky Yew ELB which has found a new home... at least that pays for the new TV.
So I'm keeping busy.
My new years resolution is to protect my metal health by leaving forums that are full of people on the front end of the Dunning Kruger curve (you may wish to Google it) and are incapable of understanding or appreciating sound helpful advice. I'll also try and avoid Facebook trolls... put your hands in the air and step away from the keyboard.