stevenspass

“Stevens Pass” is a bow that went through a difficult adolescence. It gave me enough troubles as it grew up that I considered naming it “Troublemaker”. It started out planned as a 68” bow, built of osage and walnut. I was counting on the contrast between the woods being enough to name it “Yellow Jacket” or at least “Bumblebee”.

The first problem I ran into was with the osage, which turned out, in spite of being very well aged, to be just a bit sappy at one tip when it heated up. This tip didn’t laminate well and I ended up cutting it off, shortening the bow to 64”, which stiffened it up quite a bit. Then I discovered that my walnut was too light a shade on the lam edges to provide as much contrast as I was counting on, and those names just wouldn’t be right for it. It became a matter of going ahead and seeing what I ended up with.

My next problem was lightening it up. I normally make my Hill styles just a bit under 1.400 thick at the shoulders. I figured I’d go down to 1.200”. Somehow, in the process of making sure the final passes through the sander ended up really parallel, I ended up at 1.180. That’s OK. It just looked a little extra slim and graceful.

I decided on a shelf, since I’d done my last bow without one. I cut it fairly deep to give a little better range of spine matching, and gave it a nice crown. The final shaping in the riser ended up looking very nice, with slim lines fore and aft. Considering the thinness of the riser at the shelf, I decided on a riser overlay for a little extra wood, something I hadn’t done before, and added a layer of walnut to the back of the riser, put on with Smooth On.

I worked the limbs over quite a lot in the sanding, taking more weight off and ending up at between 30 and 31 pounds at 28”, 27# at my draw. I used five coats of TruOil for the finish. The walnut riser is especially nice looking and, at least at this point, I have not added a wrap or shelf/backplate pad. I have another bow that I shoot without them and it seems to be happy. So does this one. I like the looks of the bow very much. It’s a virtual twin of my “Flapjack”, both being being 27# and osage with walnut risers, but Stevens Pass is a more graceful bow.

The layup formula was:
.040 clear glass
.100 osage tapered .0015
.090 walnut tapered .0015
.100 osage parallel
.040 clear glass

I’ve only had one shooting session with it, with too heavy a string, but it shoots comparably to my other bows of this weight. The pull is a bit stiffer pulling than my other two 27# bows. I attribute that to the shorter length.

When it came to naming it, I was still feeling good about a recent trip we had to the Stevens Pass area of the Cascade Mountains, scouting stump shooting areas on a beautiful day, so, that became its name. I’m hoping that later this week I can get it back up to that area for its first real outing.

	I really like the look of this riser. However, you can see that the center lam of walnut just doesn't have a lot of contrast color with the osage.
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	Tips have been a problem area for me in the past. I like a long, graceful tip that makes it easier to string with a stringer, but my tendency has been to end up stubby. I'm too chicken to try to go as slim as the tips on my Kramer Hill, but I'm pretty pleased with the looks of the job here.
I like the narrow back of the riser very much, too.	The overlay came out reasonably well, but with practice I know I can do better.

And the one that matters... full draw.