This isn't exactly a bow-thread, but I thought it might be a slightly different twist for a forum of do-it-yerselfers. I spent some time this weekend fixing some no0b mistakes (broken tools) I made trying to split some green mulberry logs for bow staves.
I had a nice medium-heavy hunter's axe that I really liked to use to reduce staves/logs quickly. At the time I was using it as a wedge because I only own one wedge and needed another to walk down the log with. Anyway, long story short I boogered up the handle on both my hunter's axe and my splitting axe.
So - this weekend instead of working on bows I thought I would fix my tools. They've turned out pretty well so far so I thought I would both share some pics AND invite you all to show some bow-making tools you've made or fixed that you were particularly proud of.
I didn't get any before-pics of the busted hunter's axe, but here's the handle I made from the cut-off end of a mulberry billet:
I still need to finish it off, but here it is after seating the head and sanding it down:
As a good test of my first axe handle job I went right to work fixing my splitting axe - again with a piece of mulberry. This one was too short to do much bow making with so i thought it would make a good handle. It turns out it has the perfect natural bend to replace the style of handle I broke.
So there they are - the smaller axe handle is currently working pretty well, though I still need to get some finish on it. The full-sized axe handle will probably take a couple more weeks since the wood is still a little wet to completely finish right now. I'll probably rough it out just a little more and let it dry inside before finishing it off. Ok - enough of my verbosity, LET'S SEE THOSE TOOLS!
