Saturday 7 September 2013

An Important Lesson

The little niggling voice of experience which sits on my shoulder had been tugging at my collar.
I've been slowly working Twister 2 up to a reasonable brace and it's pulling 45# at about 14" of draw.
"That bow isn't balancing on the tiller" nagged the voice of experience...
"That lower limb still looks stiff"
Damn voice wouldn't shut up, and I was getting to the point where although the bow is beginning to bend a fair bit I wasn't quite sure where to take wood off next...
Now if you are not sure where to take off wood STOP! Step away take some pictures re-measure everything..
Ah... The centre line is about 2" off centre Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Now it's times like this that the warm feeling of inner smugness overtakes the wave of panic!
These things happen, and it's one huge reason for not cutting out a grip at the early stages. I'd cut a little bit of the grip away, but barely enough to locate my hand.
I've actually got enough wood to work with still, add in the extra inch I've allowed at each end and it's all ok.
Whew!
With hindsight 2" out of centre isn't too bad, as effectively each limb is just 1" out of kilter. So I have a choice I can re-shape the grip, lengthening it a bit or I can take some off the longer tip.
As usual the actual answer will be a little of each. Losing a tad off the upper limb, may be a good thing as it's the one with the twist.
Here are two pics of it on the tiller as it is now, I don't suppose you'll see too much wrong with it.
The big lessons:-
1 Measure twice mark (or cut) once.
2 Don't remove wood at the grip, tips or anywhere else until you actually need to, and even then, take off half of what you think it needs ;-)
3 When in doubt, stop, check, measure take pics etc.
4 Listen to that nagging voice of of experience. If you have even a sniff of doubt, it only takes a minute to check. Mind you mustn't get paralysed by uncertainty. it's a balance between obsessive attention to detail and over confidence.
You can see we all make beginners mistakes and miss measure things, but a few precautions can prevent it becoming a disaster.

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