Sunday 8 January 2012

Cautious Progress



I'm writing this almost as I'm doing it, mainly in order to slow myself down and take a breather.
I've taken it back to 80# @23.5".
Some of the natural undulations in the top limb are very off putting and look like weak areas when its drawn back. It's hard to ignore these and just look at athe overall curve of the bow.
It seems to be coming adding about 10 pounds draw weight every 4" despite my removing a little wood as I'm cleaning up of the bow, so I'm pretty much there.
There are a couple of tiny pins knots on the belly (2-3mm) which are black and move if I pick at them. I don't want to risk them being the start of a pinch or chrysal so I'll fill them with epoxy/Yew dust mix to be safe.
I'm rounding the back a bit more and cleaning up the finish.
Hopefully later in the day I'll be posting that full draw shot.
Out of interest, I've noticed the string digging into the Yew a fair bit on the edges of the temporary nocks I've cut into the Yew, this is changing my opinion on horn nocks a bit. I still think they are unecessary on modern target weight bows, but I can see how the heavy bows would have really needed them.
Wish me luck.
Whew! 90# @26"
I can pull it back a bit, but not to full draw, a bit of fine tuning and cleaning up and I'll be ready to put some horn nocks on it. I daren't try a shot with the temporary nocks for fear of the string popping off.
I took a video of it coming back to 90# in case it blew up on me, I though I'd at least have it on film. Here's a pic of the knotty side of the bow.


I've since checked over the bow and been smoothing and finishing it some more. By locking the verniers to the thickness of the limb and then running them along the limb and watching the gap open up as the limb gets slimmer I noticed a thick section, a bit of work with the rasp blended it back into the rest of the limb. The bow was then put back on the tiller and hit 90# at 28".
Now I can slim down the tips and fit horn nocks, a bit of exercise will be needed to if I'm going to shoot it next week.

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