1st off, I apologize for the absence... I was in the process of getting the tiller squared away on the trilam when I discovered this:
Well, I'm not going to try to put a bandaid on this one. I haven't tossed it yet, as I think I caught the crack soon enough that it shouldn't go all the way to the walnut. I think I'll try sanding the old belly off and putting a new one on, but that will be a project for another time.
So, over the last week, I've been getting on more trilam together. Here is where it's at now:
It's a little bit of an inverse of the 1st bow. Instead of an osage belly with a walnut core, I'm using an ipe belly with an Argentine osage core! The Argentine osage I bought a while back, but it really wasn't appropriate for using as a belly. But, I'd read osage makes a good core and that Argentine osage is pretty close to American osage (and I really liked the way the osage and walnut looked together!). I started off making the bow 1 1/4" from the fades for 6" then tapering to 1/2" tip. It's 69" long this time, as I wanted to get a little less stress on the outer limbs. I'll also be trying to be careful when I get to tillering the bow when it's at full brace. I was looking at the pictures from the last bow and the tiller was looking good until I started the final tillering. I think I ended up taking too much off of the last half of the limb and not enough from the 1st half. This time around, I'll be sure to start scraping the inner limbs sooner, as I really want the full draw to look like a nice bend from the fade to about midlimb, then have the limb look straight from there to the tip (a good r/d full draw bend, in other words).
I'll be taking off a bit of wood tonight, as I pulled down an inch using the long string and the bow was already pulling 40 pounds! I did leave the ipe a little thick (a hair thicker than 1/4"), so I'm not too surprised, given ipe's reputation. Then, I'll get to tillering this bad boy seriously tomorrow!
