Bow in the Building

[pdccr]

My latest bow,

Spotted gum, unbacked so far but will probably back it with 4mm of silver quandong. Pyramid style bow. Dimensions are:

Handle: 35mm at widest part, rounded
Tapers to 50mm widest part
Then tapers to 20mm

Thickness is 40mm at handle, 18 mm spotty gum and 22mm quandong
Tapers to 19 and then tapers to 10mm. These are just the rough dimensions as i just finished roughing it out today. Bending about 1" but thats to be expected as i have only done dimension tapering and not thickness. Using the elec planer to taper it down. Pictures to follow.

[Glenn]

Will be interesting to see the final diamensions are on your bow Toby. I found with spotted gum and other Australian hardwoods the wide flat bows can become too thin in thickness and become a bit spongy for lack of a better word. I normally will take some off the width to keep the thickness to where I want to. I think silver quandong will make a good backing, looking forward to seeing some pictures...Glenn...

[pdccr]

Pictures coming up shortly.

[pdccr]

Ok sont have many pictures but you can get the idea that i was going for.

This is what i roughed out on the bandsaw. I made the mistake of glueing on a piece of softwood for the riser but thats ok.

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Here are some little problems i encountered when i was roughing the stave down to the right dimensions.

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Will be interesting to see how it turns out. I will rip up some quandong later and glue it on. Should i put a overlays on the tips? I sort of got caught between a pyramid and a carrowang (spelling?)

[pdccr]

I glued a 4mm lamination of quandong on today. Cut out another 3 for future bows and will see if the saw is up to cutting hardwood laminations, doubt it. Going to let it dry for 24 hours then rough it out. I had to take some thickness and width off as it would have been way to heavy. Pictures coming soon.

[Glenn]

It's coming along Toby. You could taper the backing down a bit if you like and the tips could be thinned to 10mm wide and still have plenty of width in them. Hows that gum vein looking? you could run some superglue or locktite in there...Glenn...

[pdccr]

I put some techniglue in the gum vein and hopefully that should do the trick. I think i might taper the backing down as i still have some marks i want to get out. I came accross some little nasty grub holes in the quandong but i managed to get around them and glue it up safely. I am going to glue up another board tomorrow which will be the same but i am going to try an ELB spotty gum with quandong backing.

I found some bamboo growing and was wondering if it would be suitable for backing or would the preperation not be worth it. Pictures will be up soon.

[pdccr]

Here are the pictures.
Im not sure if i went over the top on the clamps but it help nice and firm.

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Those marks are from my saw.

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I had to dodge the holes so i had plenty left over.

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Some nasty worm holes in quandong

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[pdccr]

Also in regards to bamboo backing, I was wondering if it would be suitable for backing or would the preperation not be worth it. It would be handy to be able to use my own bamboo and it would give the bow unique characteristics.

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[otis.drum]

what diameter is the bamboo mate. it looks a bit small.

[pdccr]

Yeah it is fairly small, my guess would be 2-4". There are some other larger diameter trees along the row that i will take a few pics of tomorrow. I think they are a different species though.

[pdccr]

Ok here are some pictures now that the glue is dry. I cut it roughly out on the bandsaw in about 5 minutes and will now touch it up with the sander to try nd get a nice look on it. Was bending about 10"before the backing and now bends about 3, i might taper the quandong though to try and get her bending. I must have missed a few spots or didnt apply enough pressure evenly among the clamps as there are a few gaps in the lams. Might also be that the lams wern't perfectly even.

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Any advice on what to do with the gaps will be helpful. I also filled that gum vein with a bit of techni glue so hopefully that should do the trick.

[ichiban]

main thing with spotty gum is that it needs 2 be degreased befor glueing, its good to use acitione.

[pdccr]

Right, I will do that next time. I am going to go and get some more staves and should have more pictures later on in the week with the bow. Sanded it down on the linisher and it came up nice, filled the gaps with glue and hopefully that should work. Will need to pay more attention to detail next time as it is very rough. The quandong works really well and added a good amount of weight onto the stave. Just from floor tillering it should cast a nice arrow.

[ichiban]

im just wondering, whats the density of the backing timber? roughly is it ash tough? where did u get it im looking for a new timber to play with

[pdccr]

I bought it at a sawmill that was closing down just outside of Proserpine. Its a very light wood but isn't too soft that it wont take any damage. Im not sure if its sold commercially.

[pdccr]

I thought i might do a bit of an update, after a bit of tillering i came across a few more gum veins so i though i might do some experimenting on this bow. Since i have never recurved a bow before i though i would recurve the tips and then recurve the bow. I heated up some water and left the bow tip in the water for about 30 minutes and then clamped it to a bow form i made up, after doing the same to the other i left it there. In clamping one of the tips up i made a slight crack it the timber, i suppose i was lucky with having left plenty of room for error and the grain was very straight. Its not really a crack but more a little bit of wood peeling up.

I decided to put a fair bit of bend in the bow so i put some pieces of wood under the tips and slowly clamped the handle to the bench, all went good and from the tip to handle is about 6" and i will leave it there for about 1-2 months. Not sure if the wood will stay put or it will come back after time. I also glued on some hardwood overlays for the string grooves. Didnt take any pics but will do so later on in the month.