Repair Work in Progress

The pictures speak for themselves, the rubber binding will come off tomorrow night and I'll then carefully blend in that overlay. All I need now is patience...
Pic 1, before any work was done, cracks indicated in red. Pic 2 the knot excavated into a clean hole and the area flattened. Pic 3 the knot after filling with a Yew plug and the area flattened down to accept the slip of sapwood which has been prepared to be glued on. Final pic with the rubber binding in place. Note the offcut of carpet on the vice jaws to protect the bow.

By the way, it's the first time I've done a repair like this so I'm doing a lot of thinking before taking action. My main plan was to avoid removing wood if possible, to maintain the flow of grain around the knot for maximum strength, (which is why I didn't drill it out to accept a round peg) and to create a smooth continuous sapwood layer over a decent length to take the tension. The glued in plug doesn't really add much other than to provide a flat surface on which to glue the sapwood overlay.

Roving Marks Shoot

Great day out at the Robert Hardy Roving Marks Shoot run by the Medieval Society.
We were shooting at long range in very blustery conditions, I was privileged to meet some of the big names of bow making and archery.
Robert Hardy was there in the afternoon and joined some of the shooting and presented prizes.
I was pleased to have him look over a couple of my bows. Three of mine were being shot, however pride comes before a fall and there was a tiny sliver of sapwood lifting on the back of Roy's bow by the end of the day.
I'd been hoping to hand over the bow, but although he was really pleased with it after a days shooting, I felt I should bring it back home for careful evaluation and a little remedial work. Hopefully the bow will be fine , but better to be safe than sorry.
Here's a couple of pics to give the flavour of the event, which was marked by the great company and friendly atmosphere, there was a wonderful spread at lunchtime and tea and cake at the end, all extremely civilised.

The pics show the two bows I made from sister staves with particularly dense dark heart wood. I snapped them as close to full draw as I could get.

Update:- I've had a good look at the bow, the sliver of sap wood was near a knot which on close examination and picking at it with a needle file has been revealed to be more extensive than I realised.
I'll post a load of pics when I've done all the work.

Hazel Bow Mistakes/Problems

These pics show how the lower limb is weak, the overheated area and the chrysal.
Click on the last pic to see it full size, I've marked a red line either side of the chrysal so you can see it, and how deep it goes through the limb.
Surprisingly you can see there is still a hint of reflex and it shoots ok.
The first pic has the top limb uppermost, second pic, top limb to the right.

Hopefully seeing my mistakes will encourage people who are having a go that even with a few problems and bad tillering you can end up with a shootable bow, and that it's not possible to get it right every time.
I'm not sure what I'll do with the bow, I may not bother finishing it, but it will certainly be a usefull reference for the next Hazel bow.

Yesterday there was a fire engine alongside the woodland, I shall have to pop over and have a look, maybe there is some wood down or a burnt tree which needs tidying up (and turning into a bow).

Hazel Bow Pics

The Hazel bow is about 36 pounds at 28", I've pulled it back to 29". The lower limb is a bit weak, with hindsight I should have made it the other way up with the narrower limb at the top. The top limb is a tad longer and thus less stressed, but basically I just rushed the whole thing, got a tad cocky and cut it too close on the bandsaw and it came out too narrow.
Ok it shoots, and as a light bow it's ok, but not really the standard I expect of myself, although considering the cost of the stave (£0.00) it's worth every penny.

Hazel Bow

I can't win 'em all.
The Hazel bow is looking good, it still has a hint of recurve at the tips, but I've spotted some chrysals (compression fractures) on the belly, they look to run deep too.
It's about 40 pounds at 28" but the stiff tips effectively make the working limb shorter and increase the stress.
The chrysals go diagonally across the belly and are visible on the edge of the bow, appearing to penetrate to about half way through.
I think I went a bit mad on the heat treating and also tried to make the bow too narrow. Changing too many things from the proven design is a mistake, my scientific/engineering background should have stopped me trying too many things at once, but hey, this is fun not work!
Hmmm ok the bow looks pretty but would you rather have a wider bow with a bit of set, or a narrow one with no set and chrysals?
You don't get ow't for now't (translation for anyone outside the UK 'you don't get anything for nothing')!
I shall press on with it and see how it performs and how long it lasts. The problem is on the lower limb, so maybe I'll need some crotch protection!
A while back someone asked if I make mistakes and get failures... well that's a 'yes'.
It just makes me realise how 'right' my little favourite Hazel bow is.

Roy's Bow and Stringing Jig

I've been working hard to get the bow finished for a shoot tomorrow, but I'd got my dates in a muddle, it's next week! At least it means I can try it up the club tomorrow instead and get it shot in.
I forgot to put my tab on when posing for this pic and the string was rather cutting into my fingers, hence the slightly short draw (well that's my excuse!)

The red grip and serving is rather handsome and contrasts nicely with the Mother of Pearl arrowplate. I've kept the nocks small to keep the overall bow length down and keep the tips light (The bow is 70.5" tip to tip). The lovely dark heartwood and creamy sapwood shows up well in the close up shots. The draw weight has been tested with my new spring dial scale, it read 62 lb first time, but then as I let it down I noticed the zero had shifted, this shows how even a spring scale spring actually stretches slightly with use, but at least this one has a zero adjustment.
I reset it and measured again, 58lb this time, of course winching it back slowly affects the draw weight, so I'm happy it's 60 lb. As an illustration, if you winch a bow back to full draw and it reads 50, if you wait a few minutes the weight will drop by at least 2 pounds and maybe as much as 4 as the wood relaxes.

The Stringing jig is made of odds and ends I had lying about, and a couple of wire fence tensioning bolts (modified a bit) from the gardening section of B&Q) It works a treat allowing me to get a nice lot of tension on the string when serving the loops, this stops a ugly gap opening up at the start of the loop when the bow is used.

Filled Nock Hole

I filled the hole with Waterbuffalo horn filing dust and epoxy, a fairly dry mix and it's turned out ok. It's surprising how much dust you can mix in with the epoxy, the more you tamp it down and compress it, the wetter it looks. It's polished better than the coarse raspings but not as good as natural horn.
the nock is a reasonable compromise between strength, keeping the feature and the limb length.
Mind once I've shot it a bit I may decide to take 1/2" off each limb!
It's hard to take a pic of something so small, and yes, I should have put a rule in the pic so you could see the scale... I hope you can see the slightly concave area just before the nock on the first pic, it's part of the interest.
You can also see it's a bit over cooked, bearing in mind how white Hazel is normally, lets just hope the tip doesn't snap off when I draw it! I'll leave it a few days to re-hydrate before stressing it.
I've realised I havn't actually checked the string will hold in that groove yet, but I'm sure I can tweak it as required, the other limb tip is ludicrously narrow, a mere 7mm wide, but the limb tip has been left nice and deep to keep it stiff, about 17mm.