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This will not be a typical pictorial build-along. I have two of those on this site already. It won't be a "how to", but more of a "how it went". I plan to write a sort of a shop diary, a little window that will show what a typical, usually disorganized, day in my shop is like, what kind of problems I hit and how I deal with them, following the project from beginning to end. As long as my energy stays up, I generally stick pretty steadily to a project and work pretty fast. I'm estimating about three weeks for completion of the project, which involves two bows which are not identical.

The entries will sometimes be brief, sometimes not. They will usually be daily, but it may happen that I have to stop and rest for a day or two. Also, sometimes higher authority dictates my schedue :^) The entries will be posted here as I go and if you want to follow along, please do so. When the project is done and this page completed, I'll evaluate it, but I'll likely just leave it up as a supplement to the build-alongs.

One caution regarding this visit: Please remember that I am a hobby builder, not a professional. Anything I say is simply what I think at this time, subject to change if I learn better. I don't do things today the same way I did them two years ago. It's a journey.

I have been planning a bow that will be a bit difficult for me. I have a tall friend, David, with a 30" draw, who would like a bow by me. Meeting his needs will require a 68" or even 70" bow that hits 35@28, giving him at about 40 - 42#. I will need to tiller it out to 32" for safety. Real long bows and tillering out to that length are not things I've done much of, since most of my bows are 66" and lighter weight. However, for a friend…

I haven't been bow building in the shop much for the last month or more due to spending time on shop modifications and life kind of getting in the way. However, yesterday I got back to it, motivated by a combination of wanting to get David's bow built (I don't like to have something hanging over me) and some new enthusiasm built by discussion on TG of Hill Cheetah's, yew limbs and ebony. To be honest, I was more motivated or enthusiastic about building something along the lines of a Cheetah for myself as a result of this discussion. There is no time frame on David's bow, so I ended up going down to the shop to simply kind of see what happened, figuring I'd probably go ahead and build mine first. As I've said many times, usually, the wood tells me what wants to be done, and that happened in this case, too.....

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I started this page on June 13, 2011. A normal build for me usually takes a week. This one took me well over a month. I decided to try to do two bows at once... a bad idea... and ran into real problems with one. I almost gave up on it, but with advice from friends, a lot of careful work and a bit of good fortune it ended up coming out well. I also had some health problems and couldn't work during part of this period. I thought about pulling this page, since it ended up so non-typical for me. On the other hand, it's real. Each day's report is exactly what happened, how I felt about it and what I did about it. I decided that such a presentation is appropriate to the kind of beginner bowmaking pages I have put together.

As I did the work, I presented the entries with the most recent on top so that those following wouldn't have to do so much scrolling. Now that it is over, I am reversing it so that anyone finding the page will be able to simply start at the top and follow through to the end.

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I went into the shop and immediately noticed a quilted maple plank I had pulled out of a corner and layed across a couple of tools a couple of weeks ago, intending it for David's bow. He wants quilted maple with a bubinga riser, straight longbow and my Forward Scout pattern. Well, there was the board, so, why not? The first reason was that the plank, 6' x 7" x 1", was warped a bit lengthwise. The Forward Scout pattern benefits from a full length back lam, one piece. The first step would normally be to cut a 1 1/2" billet to resaw the lam blank out of. However, with warp in the board, that couldn't happen.

I dug out the jointer and set up to square off one edge so that I could cut the billet with the table saw. One quick sentence but a good hour's careful effort, rigging up the jointer, dust collection and out feed support! I got one edge trued, put the set up away and cleaned up. I clean up after each tool use or I'd be buried and confused in no time! I then set up the table saw with the dust collecter and outfeed support, and cut the 1 1/2" wide billet.

With the billet cut, the next step was to resaw out two lam blanks. I had followed some threads on resawing on the table saw and decided to try it. I put a new blade in the saw and tried it, doing two lam blanks to a thickness of .230. I got the two blanks, but I wasn't very happy with the results or the process. The blanks will grind out fine, but there's blade burn and I found I'm much more comfortable resawing on the band saw and will stick to that in the future.

While all of this was going on, I was still toying with ideas for the bow for myself. I also wanted a forward riser, but with a new, shallower riser pattern, plus, I wanted to try the forward riser with a reflexed or pre-stressed limb, something I had not done before. My original intention was to shoot for something like a Cheetah, i.e. juniper or red cedar with a lamboo core, but I didn't have a 6' piece of juniper or cedar. I did have a nice 6' plank of osage, so this suddenly became an osage bow project, and I decided to do the two bows simultaneously.

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Yesterday's decision to build the two bows together led to having to spend an hour sorting and re-stacking lumber (heavy lumber!) this morning in order to get at the osage plank. Guess what? It too required some jointer attention to get a true edge. That meant setting up the jointer/planer again, then resetting things yet up again to get back to the bandsaw resawing setup. That, however, once set up, worked well and I sawed out lam blanks for the osage bow and lamboo core blanks for both bows.

I had planned on an ebony riser for the osage, but discovered that my ebony piece is not deep enough for a forward riser to the pattern I want to use, so it was back to digging in the wood piles, this time in the shorter length section. I found a nice piece of laminated katalox, part of a previous couple of days project in which I laminated up six riser blocks at once, in various woods. Katalox is very dark brown and heavy, nearly like ebony. I've made several bows with it and like working it, so that was a go.

I next found out that I was the victim of habit. When I got started building bows, I got two bandsaws, one for resawing lams, with as wide a blade as possible and one for curved work like risers, using a narrower blade. The motivation here was that I detest changing bandsaw blades. I was never actually able to find the widest blade my resaw saw would handle, so settled for the next size down and went happily on my way, using each saw for its appointed purpose, but suffering the space woes of two 14" bandsaws in a crowded shop. For some reason, today it struck me that the curves on the new overpass riser pattern I'm using are much less severe than on standard Hill risers like I used to make, so why not try to cut them out with the resaw blade. I drew a mock up in pine and cut it out just fine, so I proceeded to cut both the bubinga riser for David, a real deep one for his large hands, and the shallower katalox one for me. Now I have to look at whether I want to keep two bandsaws or gain some floor space but that's a problem that will resolve itself as I go along.

The next step would normally have been to go ahead and grind the lams with the drum sander. However, the sander needed new paper put on and also was starting to show signs of grinding a wee bit unevenly, a little deeper on the left than on the right. Once I noticed this, I compensated by flipping and turning the work and got by fine, but it was time to clean out, lube and re-tune the machine. I had not done this tuning adjustment before, as the Grizzly Baby Drum has proved to be extremely stable. However, I dug out the manual and followed the instructions… (Don't you just hate it when you do that?) Turned out not to be too big a deal. I was supposed to have machined blocks and thousandth inch gauge feelers for setting the height the same on both sides but did not. I used two pieces of 1 1/2" square alum. tubing to get an initial setting, then ran a piece of 9 1/2" pine through my planer and checked it for evenness. (Don't try to square one machine based on another that isn't square!) Next I drew a pencil line squarely across the board and fed it through the sander. Took four or five attempts and readjustments before I arrived at a setting that consistently sanded off the pencil line evenly all the way across and I was a happy camper.

I considered all of the above to be a couple of darn fine days' work. I now have a pair of 6' quilted maple lam blanks for the outer lams of David's bow, a pair of osage blanks for mine and six lamboo core blanks. I can spend tomorrow at my favorite part of the bow building process, grinding the lams. Once you've decided where you're going, i.e. the total wood stack you want, it's very rhythmic and relaxing. I should be able to get all the lams for both bows ground and possibly both risers sanded to layup dimension.

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This morning was fine example of just what I'm trying to reveal with this diary… how the best of intentions go south on you. Or, as the old saying goes, "Man plans; God laughs!"

First thing was a reminder that I had an a.m. doctor appointment for a cortisone shot in the shoulder. OK, this is a good thing, let's hope it helps. That out of the way, my intention was to start grinding the lams. However, at that point it occurred to me that I had just gone to the trouble of adjusting the drum sander for accuracy. Didn't it just make sense to make a new taper sled before starting two new bows? Yeah, it did.

I recently got a set of the three precision machined aluminum sleds that were made available by a deal Kirk Lavender of Big Foot Bows put together. I wasn't ready to deal with them when I got them, so they ended up in a corner behind the jointer. Yes, the jointer I dug out and used yesterday and , "Oh, look! There's those aluminum sleds!" So I decided to open them up and see what I was dealing with. They're beautiful…. but… Hear that laughter from On High? They were taped together with cellophane tape and had been set aside for a couple of months. The cellophane pulled off, but the glue remained. Two hours of elbow grease, Goo Gone and mineral spirits later, they are clean, but I'm shot, so I'm taking a break for coffee and a pipe and writing this up.

Couple of points of note… Re sleds: I got the flat, the .001 taper and the .002 taper. They are not practical to use for actual grinding, at least for me. The set of three is so heavy that I had to struggle to pick it up and get it on the bench. Most of you would not have that trouble, but still, I feel they're too heavy for regular use. However, they are perfect to keep on hand, well protected, as masters for making new sleds when needed. I intend to make a wood box to keep them in so they don't get nicked up.

Shop frustrations… No shop is perfect. They all have frustrations. It's up to you how long you allow any given frustration to bug you. Admittedly, some you have to accept. I have a very low ceilinged garage, shooting indoors with a longbow involves a great deal of care or sitting on a box. I also have short walls. I can't store eight foot boards, I have to cut them. OK, short of raising the house, I have to accept these issues. However, my policy is to eliminate minor frustrations NOW. If I don't, if I put it off "till I have a moment", then I'll get used to them and still be suffering from them five years down the road. Got a tool with a short cord, so you have to move it just a bit every time you use it or get out an extension cord? Stop! Replace the cord now. (Or install an overhead spring loaded extension.) Discover that the bed surface of the belt sander you built just happens to be 3/4" shy of also serving as a perfect level support for a long board in your wood vice? Stop! Take the belt sander apart and put a 3/4" riser plate under it now and enjoy the available support option from now on. I could have just gone ahead and ground the lams, using my existing old wood sled, which I know to be less than perfect, but I know me. I'd have finished up this project, then gone on to something else and when it came time for another bow build, it would be, "Oh, heck, I've got a sled…" and so on and on. Hence, a morning spent cleaning up the sleds when what I really wanted to do was grind lams. This afternoon at lunch I'll go get some maple and then make a new, more accurate working taper sled.

Taper Sleds: I used to use a flat sled and a taper sled, till I learned that I don't need a flat sled. I now grind my parallels direct on the drum sander bed and it works fine down to 60 thous. Some guys go down to 30 thous, but I'm chicken. If I want to go that thin I'll use a flat sled to make sure I don't damage the sander bed. Most guys use either .001 or .002 tapers. When I made my taper sled I ended up at .0015 and I've learned to like it. I wish I'd gotten a .0015 with the set, but I can easily make one by using the .001 master and slipping a shim under the end. (Math: 38" master sled tapered .001. It loses .038 in its length. I want to add .0005 on my wooden working sled, or half again. I need to come up with a .019 shim to put under the end of the master when I grind the working sled. Will my final result be perfect? Most likely not, but I predict that an out of shape good ol' boy who's just puffed his way up a hill will not notice the difference. For that matter, a highly toned athlete probably wouldn't notice the difference, either, but it's what I'm used to. :^)

I hope you're picking up on how this works. I was reminded just before lunch that we have a vet appointment for the cat. That and eating ate up the time till 3 p.m. I didn't get the maple, but I found I have a usable board, so now I'm going to go down and see about making a new sled. Will any lams other than a test get ground today, I doubt it. Oh, well, there's always tomorrow.

Alright! Some solid accomplishment for the day. I may attach a few pix this evening.

I had a very nice, clear poplar board. I cut it to 38" to match the length of the alum. master sleds. I ran the board through the sander to verify for flatness and all was good to go. I dug out a piece of a roll of 3" 120 grit sandpaper that I had saved long ago for just this purpose. The board was 3 1/2", so I drew the sandpaper edges on it and then carefully taped off to the lines. I covered my work surface with paper and put the taped board and the sandpaper, upside down, on the paper, sprayed lightly with spray glue, let set and then carefully placed the sandpaper on the board. Placed another board on top and clamped the "sandpaper sandwich" with a C clamp every few inches. Let dry for 20 minutes or so (appropriate for the glue), unclamped and what I had was a flat sled with a non-skid surface to hold the lams. I drew new pencil lines on the bottom and test ran it through the sander again upside down, no problems.

At about this point, or maybe a hair earlier, I had decided the heck with it, let's just make a .002 taper and be done with it, so I got the now shiny clean .002 master taper and set the new sled, upside down, on it. I drew a lengthwise pencil line on the work so I could tell how it went. The plan now was to feed the two pieces through the sander and grind the .002 taper onto the bottom of the new sled. I started feeding the assembly through the sander: THICK END FIRST! Grinding a taper in backwards and ruining a lam is a mistake you hopefully make only once. Anyway, first cut took nothing, which is the way I like it, second cut touched the leading edge and took out maybe an inch of pencil mark. From there it was just a matter of half a turn adjustment per pass until the sander took out a full length cut, removing the last of the pencil line from what would now be the thin end. Immediately took the new sled over to the bench and carefully marked it up so there would be no question of which end was which when feeding it into the sander when the pressure is one.

Last step was measuring the result. It wasn't perfect… Gosh, who'd believe! But it was darned good! I actually did the math wrong at first and got a strange result. Here's how I worked it out at first: Master was .002 taper per inch for 38", or a total taper of 76 thousandths. The new sled is also 38" and measured a very flat (to the thou.) .790 on the thick edge and identical on both edges and .724 at the thin end with a side to side variation of just a smidge over 1 thou.). These tolerances are better than I've ever had. However, the length to length taper comes out to 66 thousandths, not 76. Why? That took me a minute. I was considering the theoretical difference on the master, but an actual measured difference on the board. Catch was that in measuring the board, I deliberately avoided measuring the very end. Doing so is not a good idea on a drum sanded board. In order to avoid any potential end irregularity, I fed the ends of the board into the micrometer until they bottomed out on the frame, so I was actually measuring in about 1.5". Thus, I was actually measuring less three inches of length and taper. I realized this as I was first writing this paragraph, so hurried downstairs and measured master the same way. Doing that, I got a difference of 69 thousandths for the master, vs. the 66 thousandths for my new sled. That's still off from perfection by 3 thousandths, or .003 in 35". You know what, I'm less perfect than that myself! Actually, it makes the end result a .00188 taper sled, more than the .0015 I had considered trying for, less than the .002 I should theoretically have gotten. Certainly it more than makes me happy, especially being so accurate side to side. Why that slight difference? My guess is probably very slight compression of the cloth backed sandpaper, which was newly installed. I mike every lam after every pass anyway, so it's really irrelevant, well within any reasonable working tolerance for me.

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Odd day, hoped for a long hard day's work, but got up to realize the date… It's somebody's 54th Anniversary. So, a delay for an extra nice breakfast, followed by another doctor's appointment, fortunately a quick one. Then down to the shop.

One reason I wanted to get down there early was that the idea of those nice metal sleds just being out, unproteccted, really bugged me and I knew that had to be dealt with, so an hour and a half was spent building a nice box to hold them.

3/4 ply was what I happened to have on hand. Between the sleds and the box, once I put it away, it isn't going anywhere, and if anything bumps into it, no problem!

Three lams in the box. Strips of denim separate them and provide help in lifting them out.

That effort was followed by cleaning up and setting up, at last, for lam grinding. Reaching that point called for a coffee and pipe break, which I'm completing now, so I'm on my way back down to work.

The afternoon's work went very well. The grinding went extremely well and I fairly quickly produced the lams for both bows. Bit of guesswork involved. I've been massaging possible figures in my mind for days and had a good idea what I thought would be needed, but still sat down with the notebook and reviewed each similar bow I've made. Both of these bows involve some new kinks, the draw length on David's and the use of a pre-stressed limb on mine, so in the end you make the best estimate you can and go for it. I had planned on four lams for David's, but ended up deciding on a wood stack of .315, which I felt was too thin for four lams and didn't need them, so I ended up with two .090 quilted maple and one .135 lamboo. In his case I'm extrapolating from previous bows to try to accomodate his longer draw. For mine I decided on three lams also, though I could have just used two osage. I wanted some boo in there in the core both for the qualities of the boo and to provide a contrast lam. It will have two .085 osage and one .115 lamboo core for a wood stack of .285. Here I'm trying to guess what effect the pre-stressed limbs will have in combination with a forward riser. The limbs should add some weight, the riser should cost a lttle weight. Gonna be interesting to see how it comes out.

I did run into one problem. Yew and osage are kind of uncooperative woods sometimes, in that they have a tendency to "walk", or become curved even after you've made sure they start out straight. Sometimes this seems to be because of the cutting relieving strains in the woods, other times it seems to result from heat, such as grinding, or pre-heating in the oven. My osage did this. Knowing it is a possiblity with almost any wood (though seemingly less likely with others) I cut my lam blanks to 1 3/4" initially and then grind them. I finish up the grinding by putting the stack together and running it through the sander on edge to get it down to a width of 1.148. I was able to get rid of a little of the curve this way and what remains will be handled in the limb tapering after glue up.

My friend Brent came over about then and we stopped and chatted for awhile, so I stopped for the day with the lams ground to parallel dimension.

Tomorrow will be for all the special grinding: tapers on the cores, limb tips and overlays in case I decide to use those, and power lams.

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Got down and going early today. By 10:45 I had the tapers ground into the cores and power lams ground for both bows. I considered the issue of tip wedges, which I don't car for a lot, and decided against. Instead, I'm going to do tip overlays. I've only done that once, on Orion. Can't say it's a big thrill, but I think the contrast on these two bows will look good and it does give you deeper string grooves. So I dug the fade cutoffs for both bows out of the wood scrap bin and cut a slice of bubinga for David's and a slice of katalox for me. All that accompllishment seemed to call for a break, so here I am with coffee and pipe. I'll get back down to work on the risers in a bit. They're cut out, but I always do the final smoothing, shaping and grinding out of the fade tapers by hand and eye as the last thing. Bad idea to have a fully done riser sitting around, the paper thin fades can be damaged too easily.

I'll probably skip this afternoon. I could be ready for a layup, but I don't like to do those in the afternoon, I prefer a morning start. Got a couple of errands I can run, too. Need to hit the Goodwill and pick up some new sweat shirts for the shop. The two I've been using are getting so bad the neighbors call in reports of a homeless man in the area when I go out in the driveway. Tomorrow will be a non-work day, too... Flint Tip Archers Father's Day Shoot down in Enumclaw. I'm guessing Sunday will see one bow layed up, Monday or Tues. the other.

Went back down when my coffee and pipe ran out. After an hour and a half added to the morning session, I now have the risers and tip overlays finished. Also thoroughly cleaned the shop. All tools have been vacuumed off and put away, floor swept and everything is ship shape and ready to start the layups when I get to them.

I generally spend about an hour setting up a layup... prepping the area, lining up the tools, making sure the form is ready, taping it and the glass and just generally trying to make sure it will go smooth. Doesn't always work, but I try!

These last few work sessions have gone really smoothly. Be nice if that continued!

Ooops! Sometimes you think the day is done and it surprises you! As you know if you've been following, I had in mind to build a juniper or cedar bow. However, the juniper I have is really kind of boring, no hot grain at all, and I had no cedar, so I opted for osage. I've been looking for the right piece of cedar since this spring, when I let my cedar bow "Out of the Closet" go to someone who needed a light draw. On this afternoon's lunch and errand outing, my wife asked if I wanted to drop by Rocklers…. Duh! There I found a marvelously horrible piece of cedar, 9' x5"x slightly over 3/4"… Full of huge knots, punk spots, etc., but I thought I could see several 1 1/2" x38" runs of good wood here and there. The board was $12 and came home with me. I had hoped to get four good lam billets out of it, but only got three. Still, I'll get at leas three lam slices out of each billet. possibly four. At four lams to a bow, that's two or maybe three nice cedar longbows with boo cores.

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Today is quite an example of plans and how they don't happen! I got up all ready to go to the shoot, which is 60 miles of not particularly easy driving, only to open the blinds on a really, nasty, schlocky day. Driving on the highways here on a day like this is like running a submarine. Once there, the woods would be soaking wet and the ground slick, very risky for my legs. In spite of this, we started out, stopping for our "special event" breakfast of Starbuck's coffee and McDonald's biscuits. As we sat there and ate and watched the rain, we kind of both arrived at the conclusion that this was not going to be fun and a quiet day at home was to be preferred.

So, at home, I asked myself what I would want to do with a "free day"... a break from the project. After due consideration, the answer was, "Work in the shop!", but on a different project, to kind of clear the brain. I thought about grinding the cedar lams, but then realized that the riser should be laminated up first. I dug out several good pieces of riser hardwood and prepped them for laminating. Somehow, other things came up for consideration. I changed the blades in both the resaw bandsaw and the table saw and in the process decided to go ahead and sell the second band saw, and also the vertical edge sander I built this past winter, since I do have the big 6x80. Stopped working to write a Craig's list ad, but Craigs is not posting right now for some reason. This brought me up to 4 pm and I didn't want to get started lamming the riser blocs, a total or five: katalox, zircote, cedar, redheart and some heavy nice brown wood I have no idea what is. I considered I'd done enough for the day so I stopped. In case you're wondering about the selection of riser woods on hand and the need to laminate them, I haunt bins of hardwood cutoffs, most of which are roughly 3/4". Many turn out to be at least 18" long and four or more inches wide, and I grab these, drum sand them for level, then cut the in half, lam them together, then cut them into 1 1/2" x 2" billets for risers.

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I just read through this whole thing, and while it's longer and a bit more detailed than I had anticipated, you are getting a true view... all the smooth steps, the stumbles and hitches, and side roads I find myself taking off on. All of that's pretty typical for me, though it might be a bit more so in this case. I did say up front that I was hoping to not only build, but deal with some shop issues such as the drum sander. There always seem to be a few of those around and sometimes you just have to catch up on them.

Today was another side road. I could have layed up one of the bows, but I decided to go ahead and laminate those riser blocks, to get them out of the way and kind of get back into glue up mode. I started late after a leisurely morning reviewing the news (I'm a news junkie) and having my morning pipe and coffee. Took me about an hour to get organized and get the blocks into the oven. I'll give them four hours. This afternoon I'll probably do a little drum sanding on them to get the glue off and square then up... or maybe not :^)

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This has been, so far, a real good, productive day. I went down determined to lay up a bow. I've been real concerned about those wandering osage lams so I decided I would do that one first and get it out of the way. Even if it doesn't turn out real well, I'll have refreshed myself by going through a lay up just before I do David's bow.

One of the things I've been trying for is a better pattern for a slim version of a forward riser Hill. I've done two new riser patterns, but wasn't completely happy with either. They just didn't have the graceful appearance I was after. I did one bow with one of them, but since I wasn't satisfied with its appearance as a forward riser, I ground the crown off and finished it as a standard Hill type. That was "Bird's Eye View". I decided to try one more pattern attempt and took one of the earlier ones to the belt sander and reworked it and came up with something I'm pretty pleased with. Whether I'll be as pleased when I see it on a finished bow is the question. I took the katalox riser I had already finish shaped for this bow and redrew the new pattern on it, then reshaped it.

I also decided that because of the osage lams, I would not make the attempt to put reflexed limbs on this bow, as I had intended. Instead, I decided to use my straight alum. tubing form, which usually gives a nice slight string follow. However, I decided that in order to help control those lams, I'd replace the side washers on the form with considerably larger ones. I also decided to get serious about fully contolling the riser and power lam, and replaced the washers in that area with 3" pieces of upright metal.

The layup itself went very nicely, with the new glue room setup working fine. The bow clamped up well, with the lams held in alignment as far as I could tell. It went into the oven at 1:30 and will be turned off at 5:30. This evening, after it's cooled down, I'll probably pull it, knock off the glue squeeze and sand it down to a blank. That's the point at which I pull the tape and see what I've actually got. If I get lazy, that part will be done in the morning.

The layup in the oven. Couldn't help myself. There is just something about a form full of clamps that turns me on! Being able to get that picture straight into the form like this is something I couldn't do before I modified the oven to front opening.

I'm a pretty happy camper! I got the bow out after it cooled off, took off the clamps and put them away, loosened those big washers, cut the tape and the bow lifted right off. As clean a pull as I've ever gotten. Set up the big grinder and ground off the glue seepage,then set up the drum sander and ground it down to a finished blank, put all the tools back and cleaned up. All of that took 1 hour and 20 minutes! The wayward lams did edge out a mite, but by the time the width grind started, the edges moved in enough to provide fine full width coverage. I lay up at 1.149" and ground this one down to 1.11". The glue up was perfect... no gaps at the fades, no bubbles, no clouds. My only disappointment is that the newest riser is still not as slim as I was looking for. I figured out that the problem is that I've been working by eying proportions, but the original had a 14" riser and I generally us 16" or 18"... 18" in this case. That adds a lot of visual mass. Hopefully, shaping the riser will eliminate some of that appearance and make it look slimmer. Oh, well, there will be a next time. It still looks mighty fine!

Here's the new bow, riser section.

And a view with the osage showing.

Here the new riser is sitting squarely on top of "Arakhor", one of my "Forward Scouts". The dark area that looks like shadow to the left of the belly lam is Arakhor's riser sticking out, so you can see that I did slim it down quite a bit, just not as much as I thought I was.

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Today was David's bow's day, but once again, I decided to deal with some shop frustrations first. I have been covering my work surface with newsprint paper, which Ann uses for patterning boats. She gets roll ends of it. I'm finding it too light, it tears and is hard to handle. Also, I spread my glue with a wallpaper trim roller, which seems to work well but applies maybe a little thick. Yesterday I used a plastic picnic knife to smooth and thin the glue layer once it was on and I liked it. I use pre-cut 1' squares of masonite as a pallette for my glue mixing and used the last of these yesterday. Finally, I've been using that thin, stretchy packing plastic that comes on a handle roll to cover the form and separate the form from the pressure spreader layers. It, too, is hard to handle... folds up and sticks to itself and isn't quite as wide as I'd like.

I made a run to the local lumber/hardware and came back with 36" roll of real heavy brown paper (which I table sawed to 28", the depth of my bench), a bunch of plastic putty knives to use in place of the picnic knife, a partial sheet of hard white surfaced bathroom wall covering to cut up for pallettes and a big sheet of real thin plastic painters drop covering, which I cut into strips and then cut the strips to 80" pieces for covering the form.

I then layed up David's bow, not without bumps in the road! First, I use a heat lamp to keep my glue mix warm on the pallette. I got it too close, or the white surface acted different and the glue was starting to thicken. I had one lam half glued when I realized this. I think it's OK... we'll see. I quickly mixed a small new batch to finish with. The I started clamping and realized I was using the alum tube form and the clamps I used yesterday weren't fitting! David has huge hands and I used the original, full sized Forward Scout riser for his bow, but Scout was made on a different flat form with a different type of clamp. Too late to change now. I had to round up some larger C clamps for the center. It's now in the oven, and, once again, I'm sweating a bit till I see what I get after grinding to a blank. Probably after dinner again.

The glitches here really bother me. When I'm just making a bow for myself to try some new idea, I stay pretty cool about the problems. When it's for someone else, it really increases the tension level.

Well, when I started this, I told you it would be real... and it doesn't get a lot more real than right now. I'm definitely hurting with this post. I wasn't happy with today's layup. I was feeling some tension from pushing hard all week and from the extra stress of making a bow specifically for someone else, something I very rarely do. I was also trying to hit specs that are really out of my normal comfort zone. Those, however, are just excuses. Fact is I made some bad errors due, I think, to a combination of the stress, hurrying and just not thinking things out slowly enough ahead of time. Probably some feeling too cocky, as well, kind of a "yesterday went well, so I must be on a roll" syndrome. Bottom line is this was my second bow failure. Not as bad as my first, which was my third bow. It shattered when I was weight testing it. I still have a scar where one limb split the top of my hand to the bone. This one can be salvaged as a lighter bow that I can use with my short draw. Not sure if I'll do that or not, but probably will, as it's a real pretty thing. However, I wouldn't trust it to someone else, especially someone with an extra long draw.

The clamping that I was concerned about was in fact not good. I didn't get a good solid bond at the ends of the fades. There are small gaps. This could be because I didn't set the clamps well. Could have been because I was trying to build a bow I'd built several of previously, but on a different form. I should have used the same form. Could also have been because of the problem I noted with the glue starting to thicken. Maybe it was just thick enough that it didn't want to squeeze down well. Could have been the proverbial perfect storm with all three factors contributing.

I consulted with a professional bowyer friend and he gave me some advice on filling the gaps, but he also confirmed my opinion that the bow would not be trustworthy at the intended weight and draw. I have to admit that my seemingly easy acceptance of the situation may be based to a degree on yet another problem. I think my lack of experience building for that long draw was about to bite me anyway. I'm pretty sure the bow was going to come in light.

So, what now? My normal reaction to setbacks is to back off for a bit, relax and get my head straight, then do something else, some other project, to get my mojo back. Might set these two bows aside and do another bow entirely before going back to them, or at least back to the first one, which looks like it will finish up just fine. Or I might make a quilt I've been thinking about. In any event, I'm going to take a break. I'll report back in a week or so on what I've done to handle the situation.

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After a night's sleep and a lot of thought, I think I'm over the initial shock. With 30 or so good builds, maybe I was due for a fall. I've decided that while there are possibilities, I'm not going to mess further with the bow, just accept that, "OK, I messed one up. Learn from it and move on." I'm not comfortable with the idea of a bow with a known problem going to someone and I certainly don't need it myself. Too bad, it would have been a beauty:

- If you've built a successful bow a certain way, on a certain form and with a certain type of clamp set, build it that way. Don't try to build that bow on a different, even if "almost the same", setup and not expect problems.

- Keeping the glue pallette warm with a heat lamp is something I've only fairly recently been doing. Didn't do it previously and didn't have any problems. Guess what? Goodbye heat lamp.

- Don't make big leaps. I got to where I've gotten by taking small steps, making only gradual changes from bow to bow. Evaluate that, then try another notch. Jumping into an area where you have to start all over with new calculations might be a neat challenge, but it might also not make good sense.

- I have only rarely tried to make a bow to someone else's specs. It's just not a comfort zone for me, especially if the specs are pretty specific. I get stressed and at my age and medical history, I don't handle stress well. I start to forget things, sometimes important things, and don't think as clearly. So, this is not a good idea for me.

- Building two bows at once was too big a project. More stress, see above. Working with two sets of specs and calculations at once was, again, not a good idea. Add in trying to make shop improvements and keeping this diary and I think I was clearly overdoing things. (But the diary part has been fun and several folks have told me they really found it interesting.)

- Completely aside from this project, we happen to be having some stress in our personal lives right now... some dear friends in trouble and a family member with cancer. Taking on a big project to escape from stress didn't work out too well. Something to remember.

What am I going to do now? I think I'll simply set this project aside for a few days, maybe the rest of the week. I could just putter in the shop. I need to make a drink rack for the van, been thinking about making a cherry wood pipe, or I might make another bow with no particular expectations, just pick some nice wood and see what happens. I might get drafted into doing some quilt work. While I was writing this I got interupted by my wife, who wanted me to come downstairs and talk with a couple who want a nautical quilt for their boat. I'll see how it goes, then get back to this, finish up the first bow and wrap up this diary.

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Obviously, I took more than just a few days away from this project, almost two weeks, actually. However, it was necessary and it worked well for me. Losing David's bow was a real downer. I don't know if anyone is still checking this page, but I figure it's a project I started, so I'll certainly finish it. I plan to make it a supplement to the two build alongs I have up.

During this time, I dove into some sewing machine repair, overhauling quite a number of modern machines and getting them back in service. Then, on Monday, June 27, I felt like building a bow, but not like getting back to this project. In point of fact, I had been frustrated by both of these bows. David's, of course, was a loss, the first one I did will make a fine bow, just not the new slim forward riser style I was looking for. So, I reworked the riser pattern again and decided to just build a bow... no diary, no expectations other than playing with it myself. I have wanted a gray glass bow and had some gray glass, also had a nice piece of zircote I had laminated into a riser block. Started the bow on Monday morning and put the final coat of finish on it on Friday morning. It was a perfect build in all respects. My head was together, all the moves were well planned in advance and everything went just as planned. The finished bow hit target weight exactly and is a beauty, exactly what I had envisioned:

We had already decided to have a very quiet, at home 4th of July. Ann wanted to read and work over some music she is going to conduct. I decided that I felt like tackling David's bow again! Surprised the heck out of me. A couple of days ago I'd have said I never wanted to see that project again. I went downstairs with my first thought being that I would simplify the whole thing and just make him a black glass and lamboo bow. However, in rustling the wood around I found that I had slabbed up the whole billet of quilted maple I used for the failed bow, so I had several more pieces. Won't go into all the details, but after a day's work, I have a complete set of lams... same basic layup as the first bow, and a new bubinga riser, all ready to go. Decided to keep things simple and not go with a power lam or tip wedges, just a straight up 1950's longbow... what I'm most comfortable with. Plan to do the layup tomorrow morning, using the original Forward Scout form and pin clamps. Hope to have it out of the oven and ground to a blank by evening, thought there's another blasted doctor's appointment in the afternoon.

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Well, once again things went differently than planned. Before I got into the new effort, I got a lot of help from a specific thread on Trad Gang regarding the existence of, effect of and cosmetic repair of gaps in fades. Decided to tackle the original bow again. I ground it down notably thinner and found the gaps getting steadily smaller and less significant. I trimmed out the limbs to rough shape, rigged the bow on a pulley system and drew it to 34" repeatedly with no signs of any problem, even with it still at full untrimmed weight. Today I trimmed the limbs out quite a bit, though not done yet, and shot it. I can't say I got much performance out of it, as I set it up for 30" draw and I only get 24" to 25" on a good draw at that weight. David is coming over tomorrow and he will be able to see what he thinks of it. If he is OK with it, I'll do a comsmetic on the tiny gaps before finishing.

Meantime, the original first bow, the osage one, is in blank form and can sit for awhile. If I get David's finished successfully I plan to take a long break, so this project is essentially done. I don't know if I'll keep it on the site or not. It's really not a good example of a typical project al all and has been very hard on me to keep at and not give up on.

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I ended up going to a shoot, fairly briefly, Saturday morning. Was a great shoot, but i was coming down with what turned out to be a terrible chest cold and couldn't get enough wind for the climbing. David did come over in the evening and is actually delighted with the bow. We talked over the fades, how significant the bubbles were or weren't, the strength of the bow... which has now been pulled to 34" a couple of dozen times. I've shot it and David has drawn it and pronounced it quite smooth, even though it is far from finished. Unfortunately, I'm down for the count... no sawdust or physical activity till I can breathe normally again. Right now I'm hoping I can be back to work by Friday.

This has sure been an up and down project. Right now, I'm feeling better than I thought ever would about it. We'll see what the finished product has to say for itself.

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Man, there are colds and there are colds! This one is a humdinger. I thought I had it licked at one point and got in some work, but it came back around and I'm down again. However, the short work periods and the one day i felt good saw David's bow finished! He came over yesterday afternoon and gave it a test run on the range and is very pleased. Here are some pix.

My Forward Scout model Hill style

Quilted maple outer lams, lamboo core and bubinga riser

68"

35@28

David at full draw

David has been a recurve shooter and I was concerned at getting this bow set up so he would be comfortable with it, especially since I couldn't test it at full draw. He began by shooting consistently left, but within a few flights had gradually moved right by adjusting his grip and stance, and these were his last four shots!

I'm tossing this pic in in case you were wondering why I was so concerned about building "outside my normal criteria"... This is a happy David with his bow and an at long last satisfied bowyer.

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Well, that's the end... This is a very, very long web page, but one that I hope a few folks will find of interest. It certainly "tells it like it is." I'm not going to continue with the finishing of the osage bow that is presently in blank form. If you recall, it had a bit deeper riser than I wanted it to, a problem I corrected with the building of Javelina. I think I'll finish it up as a standard riser, rather than the forward riser I'd planned.

My next immediate project is to get over this blasted cold and get back to feeling well.

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If you have comments or questions, you can email me at:

rwightman@mindspring.com

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Here's the board propped up in the driveway.
Here and on the next shot, I've layed the board out on the bench and I'm setting existing on-hand lams on it, trying to puzzle out the best usage
Here are the three good 1 1/2" x 38" lam billets I got out of it.	This piece of zircote was lying in a bin of cut offs. It has a check in the middle and is 3/4" thick. I'll rip it on the check and laminate the two pieces together to get a nice riser out of it, probably for one of the cedar bows.