Fixing the worst of the worst

[Eric Krewson]

I made a bow for a great friend several years ago, she is one of the best shots in the country and won at Cloverdale with it the last two years.

She sent me a message yesterday that while unstringing the bow she did something stupid and broke the bows tip. I assumed it would be an easy fix until I saw the pictures, before looking too closely at the pictures I told her I could probably fix it. I am sure I can fix it even if the bow has to have a new limb but I am going to try to preserve the original limb if possible.

All the naysayers will chime in with "firewood, I would trash it and so forth" but sometimes a bow is so special it needs to be saved at all costs, this is such a bow.

I am going to glue everything back together first with unibond, then remove the exteriors and sandwich the old wood with new laminations to reinforce it. I will bend my lams on the same caul I bent the static on.



 

[Del the cat]

Yup, that sounds like a solid plan. I've V spliced a new tip on to a bows before no prob'.
I'm a great believer in repairing good bows
Be sure to show us the end product
Del

[DC]

Is the black line on the first picture an insert or a crack? I don't see the same on the other side so I'm guessing crack

[Eric Krewson]

The black line is the glue line of a previous overly I added to reinforce the tip because the limb cracked when I bent the curve. After I removed the cracked wood there wasn't enough wood left so I glued more on.

Here is another lost cause tip repair, as I was stringing this bow the string slipped off one side of the nock and split the limb from the tip 6" down into the limb. I let this one sit in my broken bow pile for years and decided to attempt a fix. Thousands of arrows later this bow is still going strong.

This repair was done with urac, man I wish we could still get this glue.

[sleek]

I'd say its fixable. You have a solid plan, go for it, I'd wish you luck, but your knowledge and skill surpasses luck.

[Eric Krewson]

Another footnote on Julia's bow; last year she was at a major shoot, they had a shoot down of the top women competitors. When they called her name to be in the shoot off all she had with her was her osage selfbow and wood arrows, she was shooting against some of the top lady shooters in the country who were shooting the latest high tech DAS recurves and carbon arrows.

She beat all of these high tec gals with her lowly osage bow and wood arrows then walked away with the first prize purse.

That is one reason her bow is so special.

[bradsmith2010]

Great story

[bjrogg]

Ouch, looks like it got slammed in the car door.
I'm sure you'll put a fantastic fix on that one Eric. Probably won't be the last prize purse it'll win.
Bjrogg

[George Tsoukalas]

Great story. I wish you the best with it. If anyone can fix it, you can. Jawge

[Eric Krewson]

My bow was a good one but the person holding it made the difference.

Julia has won a couple of these;

[bjrogg]

They usually do Eric. Still alway amazes me how some people can hit everything from anywhere and others can't come close.
Bjrogg

[ohma2]

Im like alot of other people curious how she broke it .l to wouldnt trash it .make it shoot again she no dought has the mental fortitude not to let it bother her in regards to a repaired bow.
it would be fantastic to win again with that bow.

[sleek]

They usually do Eric. Still alway amazes me how some people can hit everything from anywhere and others can't come close.
Bjrogg

Unless something is wrong with their eyes, I believe it's impossible for a person to not be a decent shot. I think most just aren't aware of matching arrows to the bow. Other than that, consistent form ( no matter how bad it looks ) and overthinking.

[DC]

Depends on your view of decent. Some people just have poor hand eye coordination (yours truly) and are not good at things that require timing and muscle control. I think it's the timing that is the big thing. I can use tools as well or better than most but put a ball in my hand and I'm useless. Always the last to be picked when choosing up sides. it's like most things in life, people that can do things can't understand why everyone can't do them. The phrase "If I can do it, anyone can do it" comes to mind. Hate that phrase. I'm sure that with proper coaching I, in time, could become satisfactory but never better than that. When I started this, about 5 years ago I would shoot about 100-110 in a round of 300. Now I'm up to about 130-140. So I'm either a lousy shot or just a whole lot more honest than other people.

[PatM]

Unfortunately those 10 000 hours of practice books (Guitar Zero) have led a lot of people to believe they can do anything they set their mind to.

 Often the biggest pushers of this are people who don't actually practice what they are preaching but they '"know they could if they wanted to".