Meet "Flapjack"

April 13, 2009

"Flapjack" is my latest bow effort. It started out badly, when I carelessly glued the back glass on upside down. From there, it became a recovery project, as I worked out a way to grind the bad glass off of the back, add two thin lams and then apply new glass and re-cook. Here's some background as I sent information to friends on the archery lists, then pix of the bow, which has one coat of finish on it and needs a riser wrap, but is otherwise done.

>>>This morning finally saw stage two of my effort to recover the blank I screwed up by gluing the back glass on upside down. Stage one consisted of cutting a riser cutout into a 2x4, setting the bow on the 2x4's edge so that the back was up and flat, and then running it repeatedly through the drum sander to grind off the incorrectly installed glass. A bit of the osage thickness got ground as well, so I made two thin .050 osage lams (thank you, Tom Ireland, for the osage) to add to the stack. All of this happened almost two weeks ago, but shooting, gardening, setting up new tools, etc. got in the way of completing the project until this morning.

This lay up, which I'm calling Layup 4.5, went very smoothly... at least as far as you can tell till you get the bow off the form. To recap: Layup 1 was Slowpoke... that went smoothly enough that it lured me into a false sense of security. Layup 2 was the one on which I put a tip wedge in backward, necessitating a major bow shortening that ended up with a heavy draw bow, which subsequently blew up because in addition to the tip wedge error, I'd over pressured the fades, resulting in glue starvation. That one cut my hand pretty badly and will leave me with a scar to remember it by. I think the good limb may end up as an osage and purpleheart walking stick. Layup 3 was the one that didn't glue on one edge, so I cut the good edge off and ended up with Lemonade. Layups 4 and 4.5 are the blank currently in the oven. That little review was as much for my benefit as yours.

This morning's effort felt comfortable, like I'm getting into the rhythm of doing a layup. I didn't feel hurried. For some reason, I've been feeling like I had to complete the layup process quickly... The glue is drying! Silly, of course, the epoxy will end up taking 4 to 7 hours to cure, so no rush. Take my time and think it through. So, it's in the oven now. I'll turn it off at 7 pm and let it cool down without opening it. In the morning, I'll see if I'm going to have a bow out of this blank or not. What I'm hoping for is a slightly wider version of Lemonade, in the roughly 25# range, though with the extra lam I added, it may go closer to the low 30's. Kind of hard to say with all that extra grinding and nonsense involved.

Since saving this lam, if it works, involved a process of kind of flipping the bow over and grinding it wrong side up, and then in effect "flipping" the back glass, it has somehow become associated in my mind with flipping pancakes, so, if it does end up being a bow, it will be called "Flapjack".<<<

>>>Yippee! Took the bow off the form this morning and things are OK. Couple of minor problems... got a little glue on the tape which meant an extra 20 minutes or so getting all the tape off of the form and off of the bow. Since I had already ground this blank down to much narrower than the form, I had to do my best to tuck the new osage lams up tight against the block washers on one side by hand. One slipped a little away from the edge, but not enough to be a problem. I had planned to grind this blank down pretty narrow, and by the time I had it all squared up at 1.1" I had clean lam edges all the way. I had planned to go down to .9, but I hit this stage and it just looked "right", so i stopped. I have the limb pattern drawn on the new tape and I'm ready to start grinding those out.
I used the new 80" belt sander to clean up the blank off the form... WOW! Talk about a chain saw moment... All of a sudden I knew I had found the absolute right tool for the job. I'm sure the same will be true of shaping the limbs. I think the only job the bandsaw will do on this blank is cutting off the tips.
My "pattern" couldn't be simpler... 1.1 at the riser... draw two lines across the bow at 5 1/2" from center... clamp straight edge and draw line from the edge of the bow at the 5 1/2" marks to 1/4" from center at the limb ends. What this produces, dimensionally, is virtually a copy of my Craig Ekin built Project X bow... the first one, that came out like an ELB. Gonna be interesting... I think the weight is going to be a bit more than I planned, but it's hard to tell before you get the limbs cut. Once that's settled, I'll be faced with the decision of shelf or no shelf. Looks like it's going to be a lovely bow, though. <<<

>>>Trimmed the limbs down with the sander and cut nocks in. Donned gloves and helmet and strung her up... smooth curve, 25#. I could have wished for 30#, since it will lose some in the final cleaning up. It's a 68" bow, so if it drops much, I can go down to 66". Did very minimal riser shaping... knocked the corners off, basically, and trotted out to the back yard with a quiver full of 1516's. No string nock, no shelf or reference spot other than eyeball, but it did very well. Some left feather kick to the arrows but they straighten out. Fly flat to 20 yds and some drop at 30 but most of my shots were on the bear's body. Rest of today will be devoted to finishing it up, cleaning up the nocks, shaping the riser... dealing with "to shelf or not to shelf... that is the question" and hopefully will have a coat of poly on it tonight.<<<

So, that brought things up to just after lunch. I did a lot of sanding on edges and final shaping and strung it up again... 22#. That was a bit light so I cut it to 66" and re-nocked the limbs, which gave me 27#. I was tempted to go for 64" and 30# but decided that quitting while I was ahead was a better idea. Then I studied the bow and let it talk to me. It's a bigger bow than Lemonade, sturdier, thicker. It just doesn't give you that, "Gee, I'm a miniature," effect that Lemonade has. What it looks like is a standard Hill bow... maybe just a hair thinner. While we were having this conversation, it told me that it wanted a shelf. I couldn't really disagree, so I gave it one. Then came a lot more sanding and finally, a coat of poly. Here are the pix:

First stringing... at 68". Here, to me, it looks like there is a bit of an elbow just past the fades and maybe too much action at the tip. By the time I finished the edge sanding and cut it to 66", this was gone and the curve looked pretty good, but I didn't get a photo at that point.	Off side of riser... walnut. Bow lams are osage. Stack is .380, consisting of: .040 glass; .120 tapered .002; .130 parallel .050 parallel; .040 glass. All lams are osage.
Shelf side of riser. The lams are all in front of the riser. The belly glass is brought up over the belly fades, the same as on my bow that Howard made.
Here's a shot of my wonderful new sander, "Monstro", set up with "Big Gulp". That portable hose entry is really neat!	Grizzly tools Seattle showroom... This is all of the portable tools put away in a corner. Looks like a mess, but getting out the one you need actually works pretty slick.

Flapjack (and Lemonade) will get a couple more coats of poly and leather wraps before Thursday, when we leave for Moses Lake. I have to say that overall, I'm really pleased about Flapjack. I feel like I really accomplished something saving this blank from my inital major error, and I'm looking forward to more layups and bow variations in the future.

Dick

Update:

Yesterday I shot it just a little while it was still 68", but didn't after I cut it to 66" and finished the edge shaping and sanding and stuff. This morning, the first coat of finish was dry so out we went for that magical moment of "What do I really have?" Just for the record, Flappie is 66" and 27# at 25", osage under clear class with a walnut riser. Took 18 arrows out, started at 10 yds, then 17, then 23, and finally 30. Here it is... Flapjack shoots as well for me as just about any classic D style longbow I've ever had...

I did see that the arrow strike point on the riser is further back than I like, and dealt with that, increasing the arc on both the riser and the shelf before today's coat of finish.

The real thrill is that when I get back from Moses Lake and Belfair... I can make another one!

Dick