Monday 30 April 2012

Finishing Work + Video

This rain has given me 3 solid days working on the bow. Yesterday I got the horn nocks on and semi finished. I also did some general finishing work.
Today I've finished the nocks and continued the painstaking finishing work going over the bow with various grades of sandpaper often in diabolo fashion* working down to 400grade wet & dry paper. It's had a wipe of Danish oil and I've taken pics of some of the nice features.
The top left pic shows the lower limb with it's blush of pinkish purpley colour. The top right pic shows the hint of reflex on the tip and the heart sap boundary. Last pic shows the area of the grip with some real character, a blush and wriggle of grain and the only knot I filled just grazing the belly, to the right there is the slight depression in the side where there is a wiggle in the grain which follows where it was originally split from the log. It might be a shame to put a leather grip on it and cover the character, I shall see how it shoots. Being 60# the grip is fairly big and solid, I deliberately left a little extra sapwood on the back there too, so it feels good and doesn't have the sharp corners you often get between back and sides.
Here's a video of it being draw back to 28" and then briefly 29"

*Diabolo sanding/polishing is when you have a longish strip of sand paper, hold one end in each hand and work it back and forth. E.G with the bow horizontal, I have the paper draped over the bow and pull down on each side in turn, this is great for the round belly of a longbow and it also gives a bit of a radius to the edge where the back meets the sides.

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