Monday 23 March 2015

Starting a Take-Down

The bow with a bend has been sawn in half and is going to become a take-down (carriage bow). I was thinking of using sheet steel to make a socket, but the guys on Primitive Archer suggested glass fibre tape and epoxy resin would make a pefectly fitting take-down sleeve which would be virtually invisible when finished. They provided a link to a long series of You tube videos which show the whole process done on a recurve. Be warned, there are 10 videos!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByxnlRc0ePc

I've got the bow jigged up straight and you can see from the pic the amount of misalignment that I've had to take out. Running a hand saw down through the slot has trued up the faces and an angled hole has been drilled through the join to give temporary alignment when pegged with a bit of bamboo kebab skewer.
I've rasped away the wood which will be replaced with epoxy and glass fibre tape. The whole grip area will be wrapped with tape and epoxy, but one side is coated with mold release wax first to allow it to come apart.

I've order the materials from the interweb, it's costing about £35 but there should be enough to do a few bows.
I wouldn't have spent any money if I'd done it with steel, but I wouldn't have learned so much.

My son and I had a bit of a break, shooting a few arrows into the garage... he couldn't seem to get a decent group, so I found the spray can I'd used on the sculpture I did last week. It was so near empty as to be no further use. A target like that is a good incentive and he hit it in short order with a satisfying hiss... aiming for the yellow rectangle on the can.
Mind it spayed black paint over my arrows, so I had to clean them up afterwards!




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