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

Radical Flight Arrow

 After the Character Yew ELB exploded I needed a quick fun project that wasn't a bow. Well I had this idea for a flight arrow. The premise was you start with a shaft that is smaller than normal diameter, but because of that it is too flexible. Long wooden vanes are added to both stabilise the flight and stiffen the back end of the arrow. I expect it's been tried before, but I wanted to see what it would do.
I started with a 9/32" shaft of about 30 spine and add three long thin shallow fins of Ash, a brass point was added which get the balance point to just about centre.
I tested it this morning, It left the hand with no problems but the back end was swinging round (nutating) in a circle. As it started to come down it flattened out and started twirling round like a Sycamore seed drifting in the wind! Highly entertaining!

I'd also made another flight arrow (32") taking the best performing arrow that I'd made for my mate JT as the reference/start point, and making minor changes that I hoped would improve it.
I kept the same 5/16 shaft as the basis for the arrow but narrowed the front end much more, adding a wooden footing for strength (and to keep some front end weight). the back end was similarly tapered to the reference arrow. I used the same profile fletching and kept the balance point just about the same. These changes resulted in the arrow being slightly lower spine at the front, but slightly stiffer in the rear, it also reduced the weight by 50grains.
JT had a quick try out for comparison using the bow he'd been roving with (about 90# ? ) and the new arrow flew 18yards further. hardly a conclusive test, but highly encouraging. I think it went about 285 yards, which is OK considering it wasn't a flight bow. I told him to shoot another 100 shot for comparison and to tabulate the results ;-)

They Tell Me it is Character Forming

 I had a guy drive 2 hours to collect that character Yew bow (in the last post). He shot about 10 arrows through it, we had a nice chat and tried some of the more exotic bows including the Chinese Repeater of course :-)
He drove home, messaged me thanking me for the bow and my hospitality... about 3 hours later he sent 2 pictures of the bow smashed! Apparently he'd been enjoying shooting it and it just went bang! H'e paid me by Paypal, so I just got on there and did a refund. We were both gutted.
I don't often go the whole hog on finishing a bow, I see them as more utilitarian than decorative, but that one was done as a masterpiece.

Well that was yesterday and I was rather down, but I've cheered up now. There are plenty of worse things happen, and as for all the time and effort I spent... well at least I wasn't painting skirting boards!

Anyhow, I've laid off working with wood and Yew in particular for the last week or so and my niggling cough has substantially improved. I think that over the years I've become sensitised to Yew dust and it's almost impossible to keep the workshop dust free even with my dust extractor and mask. So, I've invested in a Trend Airshield Pro respirator which blows filtered air down over you face behind a face shield/hood. It's pretty good, took a bit of fiddling to get it comfortable, it doesn't mist up which is a big advantage. The fan is a tad noisy, but can't be heard if using the bandsaw or belt sander anyway!

I'll lay off the bows for a bit while I fiddle with an idea for a radical flight arrow. Of the three staves I was recently given, that's the second to have exploded... I may dump the third (worst one) into my off-cut sack and quit while I'm behind.

Yew Character ELB

 

The character Yew ELB is virtually finished now, I got the horn nocks on it and shot 50 arrows through it indoors. Yesterday I took it out roving, it was a tad under powered for some of the longer marks but shot well and I was pulling the arrows right back to the tip with the point lying alongside the grip (the arrows are 28" to the base of the point and 29" overall). I shot another 55 arrows, so the bow has certainly been shot in.
This morning, I strung it, flexed it a few times and tried it on the tiller to 28", it weighed in at 44# . The guy actually wanted 43#, and that's what I've labelled the bow as, because it will doubtless settle by a pound or so. I normally only weigh 'em to the nearest 5# as the weight shifts over a days shooting and with age, weather etc.
There's a bit of a bulge at the grip, and the back is slightly concave across the width which would make it uncomfortable, so I've padded out the back with leather, built up and glued with UHU glue then rasped/sanded down. I'll get the black leather grip done today... I've taken the trouble to colour the leather black where the seam will be so that no pale leather shows through. I'm taking a lot of trouble with this bow as it is a bit of a stunner to look at.

I've just finished the grip, here are some pics.

Testing the Re-worked Lever bow

 

I tried the re-worked lever bow with some flight arrows, the draw weight is now a bit lower, but the limbs at the splice and levers are lighter. I shot five arrows, mostly at about 280 yards, but one went 313 yards. The best arrows were 27" long at which length the bow is about 60#.
So I'm pretty happy with that distance from a 60# bow. It also shows that the splice can be quite slim and still withstand the shock and leverage. The 28" arrow flew less far than the others, but was a good bit heavier.

Having had one Yew bow explode due to bug damage in the sapwood, I've started another, there are some splits and knots in it, but it's a gorgeous character stave with some natural reflex. I'm going to avoid getting greedy and just aim for 40-45# @ 28", 72" long.

Bug-grrrr

 The big Yew primitive exploded on the tiller while being exercised at about 80#. I was very surprised as a wide thin limb is much lower stress that an narrow thick one.
Anyway I did a post mortem and found some bug damage in the very thin sapwood, there was also an area where the bark had been chaffed through, presumably by a crossing branch, the sapwood there had that blue staining and was noticeably dryer and less waxy than the rest of the sapwood.
I've inspected the other two staves for any bug holes and they seem ok, fingers

crossed.