I am often asked how my bows get their names. Here is an example. These are two early posts I put up when I started working on this bow:

>>>Daggone Dratted Bow Wood!

#$%^&* There, take that, you blinkity blank bow!

I remain totally convinced that there is no such thing as an inanimate object... especially anything involving wood. Too many times I've gone down to my shop intending to do something very specific, that I have carefully worked out, only to have the project, the wood and tools, "talk" me into something else. It's happening again this morning. The wood and the tools are telling me that they really, really don't want to do what I had planned; that they'd be much happier another way entirely, and by gosh, I'D BETTER LISTEN TO THEM! (They can be quite forceful...)

I don't know if others ever have this problem or not, but I've decided I'd be wise to give in. (The tools, particularly, can be very nasty when they're upset. I have the scars to prove it.) Now I have to go back downstairs and see just what it is they want to do.

Dick Wightman<<<

>>>Fighting With Wood... The Saga Continues

I had some discussions with my unruly elm wood this afternoon, and I finally got the message, which was basically, “Look at me! Look at me!” When I was billeting and resawing into slabs yesterday, I had one elm board that required a touch of planing, leaving it just too thin to get four lams out of… the last one was about .080 with the saw marks still on it and I was looking for a finished .120. I set that one aside and made another from another board. So, one of the problems was that that thin piece was upset. It was trying to tell me, “Look at me! I can be part of something… really I can. Don’t waste me… Please!”

I had a couple of other pieces upset with me, as well. When I finished grinding out the main lams, I discovered that while red elm may not be a spectacular wood, like yew, cedar, osage, walnut or maple, it is quietly pretty, with a soft brown color and, in this case, some nice flowing grain. My plan was to make a two inch wide light bow, under a piece of opaque brown glass that I had on hand, then cut it down the middle and see if I could get two youth bows out of it. I had heard that this works, and wanted to try it, though I really felt that the risers would be thinner than I would like. That was my plan, really it was.

However, those two lams with the nice grain were trying to get my attention. “Hey, we can look good, really we can! Don’t make us hide under brown glass. Put us under clear and we’ll show you!”

Well, I just happened to have a couple of pieces of 1 3/4” clear .040 glass up in the storage tube. After all this discussion, and fearing open revolt in the shop, I sat down with my logbook and looked over the stats of everything I’ve built. Hmm… Some good bows with total stacks ranging from .280 to .388, averaging .372. That includes two that are at my upper limit. Let’s see, what would I have to do to come in nicely under that average? If I could grind an .050 lam out of that thin slab, that would shut it up. I’d have to grind a second one from a regular slab, but, hey, I have several extra from the second board. That would give me a stack of .370, right at the average. To come in under, I could grind one of my .120 pairs down to .110 and then use the clear glass. That would shut up the two lams with nice grain. OK… let’s do it!

I did, and now I’m working on another of what is becoming my “standard” bow design. I’m going to make one variation… I’m going to extend the riser fades an inch both ways, to move the action up the limb just a tad… kind of an exterior power lam. This bow will clearly be the result of listening to my wood when it became upset with me, so it’s name will be “Look at me!”

Dick Wightman<<<

Next Update:

The bow went into the oven yesterday and I spent the night, as always, waiting and wondering what would come out. (I let my bows cool off at their own pace overnight.) The waiting finally ended and the bow came out this morning, after a fortifying cup of Starbucks. As always, you couldn't tell a thing. I got the equipment set up and ground off the excess glass and it looked great.... probably the best job I've done yet on butt joints and the ends of the fades. :) The riser end of the fades... ooops.... :( ... OK, put not as perfect... a few bubbles. I just didn't get the pressure high enough there right where the glass ends. They're small and won't hurt anything, but I'll always know they're there. One of the joys of clear glass.

I did more grinding to produce a nice square blank and took the tape off and ended up with a nice bow blank. The elm looks good, the cherry riser looks good. I drum sanded it down to 1.346 wide and layed out the bow shape. I band sawed the limbs and then did some belt sanding on them. The bow is now ground to shape and came out perfectly... the curves are even, the longer fades did move the action up the limb as I wanted. (18" riser) It's nocked and pulls 38@28; 32@25. It'll lose 3 or 4 pounds as I finish it, bringing it hopefuly to 28# at my draw, which is good... same as Out of the Closet. If I were to shorten it to 64" I think I could bring it in solidly in the mid-40's, nice to know for the future.

Re bubbles... The only place I ever seem to get them is at the top of the fades. They're not bad, they just bug me because I know I'll get rid of them if I keep working on it. I have several ideas... I've played with a shaped piece to clamp into the curve with moderate success. I didn't use it this time. I think it can be improved on. I'm also sketching out a riser shape with a more gradual slope at the inner end and I'm going to add some clamps with longer hangers so that I can reach down to the third set of holes in my form and get some additional potential clamping angles. It'll get there. (I know, I know... use fire hose and air pressure... Unfortunately, just like I'm a straight longbow man, I'm a clamp man. There's something about that form all covered with clamps that does things to me... and anything that can do that at my age is to be treasured!)

Tomorrow I'll finish up the sanding and edge shaping and attack the riser. Still have to decide between shelf or no-shelf. I'm inclining toward no shelf. Still a few chance to screw up, but this bow is being very cooperative now. I think it's pleased that I listened to it.

Here are some pix at this stage:

perfect fade points	real good but joints
the ends of the fades are also good... but... ouch... bubbles	the elm looks great
	bow form drafted on tape on the back of the bow

Next Stages:

Yesterday I used the round end of Monstro, my 6x80 belt sander, to sand the riser in to a thickness of 1". This was interesting because I previously used my oscillating spindle sander for that job. It's sleeve was pretty worn and it started burning the cherry. I didn't have a new one on hand, so I decided to use Monstro. It was definitely more aggressive, but I had no trouble contolling it and it did the job quickly. I then switched to a pneumatic drum sander for the final riser shaping. After that it was all hand sanding. I did a good bit of that, then took it out to shoot... Just couldn't resist any longer.

Here's a post I sent to the Longbowmen describing the day:

>>>My day consisted of final shaping and sanding on Look at Me. It's shaping up very nicely. The final riser shaping managed to grind out some of the worst of the bubbles that I ended up with. I got some veneer to put on the fades to cover the bubbles, but I think I'll just leave well enough alone.
I decided to go with a shelfless classic riser and when I reached a final shape took it out back and tried several arrows. My first couple of guesses were too light. It seems to like my 1716's that I use with Out of the Closet. They read a bit soft, but have 100 gr. tips. If I drop down to 85 gr. I think they'll be fine. After the testing out, I was able to kill my bear about 60 times, all the way out to 30 yards. This will be a nice bow. Tomorrow should see all of the sanding to prepare for a finish and the first coat of finish on...<<<

Well, now it's tomorrow and I did complete the finish sanding. I did more than I sometimes do and then re-tested the draw, which is now 33@28 and 28@25... exactly what I was aiming for originally. Then I took some tiller check pix:

The bow now has two coats of TruOil on it and is drying. Tomorrow morning it will get the writing, then two more coats. The next day it will get a new string and wrap, have it's power graph done and it will be finished except for it's final picture session.

So, here's another tomorrow and the finished bow. The power curve looks pretty good. It starts off at an easy rate of increase, humps about 1/2# per inch bit toward the middle of the draw, then eases off a bit through 26" and starts to increase again at 28". Someone drawing to 30" might notice a bit of stack. I certainly won't. It chrono's at an average of 135 fps with hand release at my draw, which means it would certainly hit 145 or more with the machine, which is kind of my standard for speed at the low weights I build at. The Hill standard for a regular draw length is 115 fps plus the draw weight, which for this bow would be 143. If I could get the extra draw length, I'm sure I'd hit that. It has some flaws... I haven't built one yet that didn't, but it's pretty, shoots nice and overall I'm very pleased with it.

Red elm may not be spectacular, but I think it makes a nice statement.
The cherry riser is gorgeous. I hated to cover it with a wrap. And, how about those angled butt joints?
. Closeup of the wrap, leather wedge insert and strike plate.	It likes to shoot. This isn't spectacular at 18 yds, but it's early shooting yet. The bow is capable of shooting far more consistently than I am. Note that the lower middle bare shaft is right in there
On the way back into the house, I couldn't resist throwing three quick shots (quick for me, Fred Asbell I ain't!) at my my deer target, which also gave me a chance to get a strung pictures in shade.	And here is unstrung. My usual straight bow.

There you have "Look at Me!"

Captain Dick