Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Springbuck on December 15, 2014, 07:11:34 pm
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I have no luck with the thing I see a lot of you doing where you pencil in a thickness line on the sides of a squared up stave. I have also learned that if I can successfully rough out a bow to a consistent thickness, without ruining the stave or finding a surprise, I almost always finish it at the weight I want, etc.. (the only place I destroy bows any more is when I get distracted during heat treating :() And since a lot of what I have to work with is lumpy and otherwise rough, getting to that starting point is often challenging
It recently occurred to me that I can help this process with my tabletop drill press, if I start with a stave with squared sides. I rigged a rounded block and clamped it to the platform about 1" from the axis of the drill. Following the grain, or the crown, appropriately, I can mark out a centerline for the limb, and place that centerline against the block. Then if I drill a hole every 2" or so, and connect the dots, I can follow the humps and hollows of the back, on the belly. I can split down the drilled holes, and after working the belly wdown with spokeshave or scraper, VIOLA"! Consistent thickness.
It occurs to me that if I used several drill bits in increasing sizes, I can do the same, but establish a preliminary taper. You could probably do this with the right miter box, as well.
Anyway, if it helps.
T
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Ummmmm I use a pencil compass for that :)
"If in the wild" I use a charred large piece of wood, on the side held by my fingers that follow the "roller coastery ride" of the back.
Bing,,,O. Transferred thickness ;D
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What wood splits along a line of holes without digging in below level from time to time?
I'll keep using a hatchet and Farriers rasp. Don't have drill press anyway.
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once the bow is roughed out,, the long string will tell you alot about the taper,, you are right if you have alot of dips a bumps,, you need to really go slow and use your eye by sighting down the taper on both sides alot,,
this will help once you have the general taper,, to keep it tapered,,there is no easy way,, :) lots of practice does help
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I just machete along one growth ring, then depending on ring thickness I expose a certain number of rings down the limb and call that my starting taper and start the tillering process. Leave a little more for knots, Make sure I compensate for little wiggly areas, maybe cheat in a little extra mass to keep a knot I like in the bow.
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For me the easist way is to take the belly down 1 ring at a time. I never use a bandsaw anymore. I did one today that was about 3" thick, I just took it down 1 ring at a time until it started to flex. I had it floor tillered in about an hour with just the draw knife. It only takes about 2 minutes to remove a belly ring once you get it on one ring. If you start floor tillering when you think you are getting close you don't take much of a chance of comming in light. White woods I tend to cheat and reduce with the bandsaw.
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What ever works, I just use a carpenter's line to mark the thickness along the edge and it follows the contour of the back. Then I just rasp toward the middle on each edge at a slight angle and then take the hump out of the middle. Quick and easy. :)
Pappy
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Whatever works for you. I'd be afraid I'd make a mistake and drill through the stave.
With the stave I'm using now I just used a hand axe and got the limbs flexing.
Then I usually go to a dknife but I decided to give my back a rest and use my sander for floor tillering and more roughing out.
I finished up floor tillering with my surform and then used my push knife as a scraper.
Jawge
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+1 Pappy. Facet a line and work down to it leaving a crown in the center then knifing the crown down. Belt sander, drawknife, and SS scraper. Use my sense of touch to judge the taper.
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I second the facet method, I do it with the draw knife down each side and then remove the rings one by one down the center.
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Do any of you ever use calipers to check taper/thickness? I have seen a couple of methods that do, but that may have been only for board bows.
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I use my fingers and a pencil as a thickness gauge. I start out at about 5/8" on the sides with a slightly crowned belly. I check floor tiller then go to 1/2" along the sides. Usually from there I only use a scraper to reduce the thickness as needed for tillering and weight reduction. As stated above I follow the contours of the bows back leaving knots slightly proud until final tillering where I reduce them until they almost begin to bend.
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Ummmmm I use a pencil compass for that :)
"If in the wild" I use a charred large piece of wood, on the side held by my fingers that follow the "roller coastery ride" of the back.
Bing,,,O. Transferred thickness ;D
Well, I don't know what is wrong with me, but this is exactly what the first couple sentences of the post said I can't seem to do. Just doesn't work. I can rasp down in facets to the sides, but this gets me started quicker and better.
I think it is partly due to the fact that I work so much with small diameter trees, and rarely can or will square the sides up, nor are they very thick when I get there.
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What wood splits along a line of holes without digging in below level from time to time?
I'll keep using a hatchet and Farriers rasp. Don't have drill press anyway.
All of them, so far or I wouldn't have kept doing it. Part of the trick is the layout of the center line on the back. If you do that right, the holes are automatically following the grain perpendicular to the midline of the back.
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once the bow is roughed out,, the long string will tell you alot about the taper,, you are right if you have alot of dips a bumps,, you need to really go slow and use your eye by sighting down the taper on both sides alot,,
this will help once you have the general taper,, to keep it tapered,,there is no easy way,, :) lots of practice does help
I've had plenty of practice, having made well over two hundred bows. I've been at this 15 years. Remember, this is how I reach STARTING point only, but "well begun is half done."
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For me the easist way is to take the belly down 1 ring at a time. I never use a bandsaw anymore.
This would be fine, but I almost always find myself working with saplings between 3and 5 inches across. There are often so many rings visible, I'd have to scoop one out at a time with a gooseneck scraper. ;D
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+1 Pappy. Facet a line and work down to it leaving a crown in the center then knifing the crown down. Belt sander, drawknife, and SS scraper. Use my sense of touch to judge the taper.
Done this a lot. Can do it. Gave it up for this method.
Comancheria: I do this, but not always, and basically only when roughing out to drying thickness, like 1" or more. You con't need an actual calipers; any spanner to measure thickness is fine. Once I'm tillering, I listen to the wood.
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I second the facet method, I do it with the draw knife down each side and then remove the rings one by one down the center.
This is what I do once I start actually working on the bow. Your method there is the method I use once I'm working on taper, or bringing down thickness to start floor tiller.
What I'm describing is how I go from stave to blank, and then I start making a bow.
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One of the greatest things about this craft is all the various ways different folks achieve the same end result. My process has changed often over the years and will again. I see or read about a particular method and try it if it sounds sane. If it works better than the old way, I adopt it. My tillering method is probably locked in for all intents and purposes simply because it works. For me.
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yes well begun is a great starting point,, :)
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Well, I'm not miffed, but a little surprised at how quickly this idea was dismissed. Nobody tried it. Nobody considered it, and it seems nobody gave it even a second thought. That's a mistake, even for accomplished bowyers.
I have been around, making bows and watching you guys make bows for 15 years. I remember when Badger was kind of a new guy. I appreciate everyone's expertise, but I have done, or did do every method you guys just mentioned, and the reason I posted this is because I found, after making a couple hundred bows, that this method is actually superior for following the grain and establishing a starting/roughed out thickness. It has improved my success rate.
Now, you may not NEED it, and any of you might be better bowyers than I, but please consider that this MIGHT come in handy someday. It might help a new guy get used to seeing how to follow grain on a stave that twists, then twists back, etc... Can't hurt.
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Springbuck, I was thinking the same thing you posted just now, it did seem we dismissed it rather quickly. I think the reason it was dismissed is because a lot of us don't establish a thickness as much as we do a point where it starts to bend. In my case I take off one ring at a time on the belly becuase I find rings come off easier and it takes me less time to reduce a stave. When it starts to flex I have my thickness established. I have long respected your willingness to do new things and experiement we are a lot alike that way. I just think like all of us putting ideas out there that sometimes they fall flat. Not taking anything away from you at all. About 90% of my ideas fall flat, I usually end up rejecting them myself at somepoint. Stay at it!
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Sorry, Springbuck. You are right. I will go back and look it more closely. Jawge
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Sounds like it will work just fine. Jawge
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Some of the guy's here reject all power tool's, some don't have any, some are set in their ways, nothing i can't see wrong with your method but personally, i don't have a drill press, wish i did😊, make alot of things i build easier, thanks for the idea and i'm sure it will get tried out
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Have you tried this with Elm?
I just see no reason to connect the dots when I can get close much faster with a hatchet. Many times people come up with new ideas as a way around struggling with a technique that may be easier for others.
I never measure the thickness anyway.
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i apologize if I seemed dismissive ,, I just have never had that issue and didnt really understand your method,, thank you for sharing,, :)
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Sorry also if it seemed I dismissed it as a bad way to do what you do , Just told you how I do it, seems like your method will work fine, just more trouble to me because I don't have a problem with the way I have been doing it. You have to remember that a lot of us has been doing this for a while and set in our way and shouldn't let it upset you when someone don't want to change and do it your way. Just saying. ;) :) :) :)
Pappy
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And again, I am not feeling hurt, and nobody owes me an apology or anything, but thanks for the replies. I respect each of your knowledge and abilities.
Just to clarify a bit.... I started doing this primarily because i tend to screw bows up in the rough-out phase. Green elm tears out badly, I'm suddenly too thin on one side of a knot, propeller twist has me cutting too much off one side, not enough on the other, etc...Also, because when I'm teaching a local lad to make a bow, it creates an ordered step to move toward thickness tapering and floor tillering.
I got the idea watching a build-along on Stickbow.com, where a guy measured ELB thicknesses by drawing measured circles with a stencil on the side of his stave to establish thickness taper. I flipped it around, but it's basically the same idea.
Badger: I am most often working with wood from small diameter trees because that is what is available to me. I have followed rings on the belly, but usually I am looking at growth ring lines of a half split to start. If I followed one ring down the middle I might end with a stave stave 1" thick on one end, and 2" thick on the other.
I am also oftern doing this with green or partly green wood. This is how I get a stave prepped to 1" thick plus a handle, no muss no fuss so I can sclamp it to a board or wall stud in my garage to dry. sometimes I don't want to flex the wood either because I know it is too green, or I know it is too thick.
Bubby: I think this method could be adapted to a jig and a saw. You've seen a miter saw, with the stiffener on the back? A very simple jig could be made to stop the saw 1" from where the back of the stave rests.
PatM: It works especially well on elm, and other stringy white woods. red elm is so ragged when you split or machete or even draw knife it. Sometimes twist will wander 20 deg one way, then come back to center, and then the other way 10 deg., or a propeller twist will extend 30 deg on an otherwise beautiful stave. I can correct that with heat, but only if the limb is fairly wide and flat. On straight wood that isn"t lumpoy and knottt, i often chainsaw the staves, then drawknife to drying or starting dimensions. Part of the deal is that the holes are drilled where the split wants to be, following the grain rotationally, without all the tear-out and wandering of a regular split.
Pappy; no problem. It was mostly just in case anybody could see a use for it later. One of the reasons i come here is to read your (youse-guyses) posts. They stick in my head now and then, and when I hit a problem, i say, "I wonder if that thing Pappy was asking about two years ago, and then found an even better way, would work here.?" And a lot of time it does.
I hope I diidn't put anybody too much on the defense. I'm glad i found you all again after paleoplanet dropped off. Merry Christmas!
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I can picture your method but can't see why it's better/easier than using a hatchet and a gentle floor tiller. I just see potential for drilling through the side that is on table not exactly where I wanted.
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I actually have opnly claimed that it is "great", not necessarily" better". It's only better sometimes, though, I did mention, I don't like to floor tiller green wood.
The concern you just mentioned is exactly what it helps you avoid. When I am hatcheting or drawknifing the belly, even if I frequently check my work, I have found twisted grain and suddenly had big tear out, or wandered too close to one side of a twist and found my middle thickness to be perfect, but one edge way too thin. The key is that the crown you can mark out exactly follows the original split, but perpendicularly. So, using that crown to align as you go ensures the twists and waves are followed, and the crown will follow the grain AND will lie exactly in the middle of the limb.
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I'm still not clear what prevents tear-out as you split off the parts between the drilled holes.
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I don't know how else to explain it, then, other than saying that the holes follow the grain. Say you have a plum sapling, 4" in diameter. If I split that small log end to end, because it is plum, it will probably spiral at least 90 deg. The belly side of that split will be mostly flat side to side, but twist longwise, and I'll have a half round stave 2" thick, that twists. So, this is an extreme example, but if I use my method, the holes drilled will spiral as the stave spirals. The drilled holes follow the grain. Then I come along with a hatchet and split again down along the holes. The holes guide the split. The wood splits from hole to hole following the grain almost perfectly.
So, now the limbs are @1" thick, follow the twist of the stave. Exactly up the middle of the back of this stave, at any point, regardless of twist, is a centerline that will be both the highest point on the crown AND one long line of uninterrupted grain fibers. Grain won't wander side to side or run off. Now, I come back with a rasp or whatever and remove any remaining wood between the little furrows, until those furrows disappear. Viola', even this crazy spiral limb is now a consistent thickness AND a consistent cross section. Strap it down with clamps that remove most of the twist to dry, cook the rest out during belly toasting, and make your bow.
Now, of course a spiral stave has it's own problems. But many staves twist just a bit one way, and then back the other, or have weird jogs in the grain before a knot or whatever.
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Oh. I just cut pipe straight wood so I don't have those problems. ;D
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Brilliant!
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I think I'll stick with my hatchet. I have two bandsaws but hardly use them to reduce staves. And I try to leave a crown also.