Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: upstatenybowyer on May 27, 2017, 03:52:56 pm
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Thought it might me interesting and perhaps a bit humorous to hear about some of those "aw @#&*" moments we must all have had over the years. Here's two I thought of off the top of my head...
rasping on the belly, not paying enough attention and the rasp slips under the bow and dings the back >:(
got really into an episode of Prison Break and forgot about the bow steaming on the stove in the kitchen :-[
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I was bending recurves in a bow and when done I realized one was bent up, the other down. (A) >:(
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Well there was that one guy that cut in the nocks on a limb, then realized he cut them in backwards. So he got out the rasps and reshaped the tip which shortened it so that he now needed to flip it end for end so that this limb would now be the shorter and lower limb.
Only then when he cut in the nocks anew, he cut them in backwards AGAIN!
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I know a guy who was steaming a bow on a pot over a coleman stove, got distracted until he smelled wood smoke. Turned out the water boiled away and the handle section burned to a nice black color and ended up in the trash, it was osage too. You all might know him, his initials are EK.
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Bandsaw... ::) Running the stave through and not tilting it the right direction thus leaving a whole lot less of the belly to work with. :-[
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Yikes! those are some classics. Paul, I've done that exact same thing more than once!
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Too many to list!!
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I did the string nocks the wrong way thing, explaining how to do so in front of a class :-K (A) ! Bob
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I was working on the band saw with a hickory bow and turned my saw off to admire the cut my band saw wheels keep turning for a couple of minutes after turning it off & I was using the band saw light to look & inadvertently pushed my index finger into the blade & a trip to the ER ,I still dont have total feeling in that finger after 2 1/2 years cut threw the nerves ,that's my top blunder !
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Well gee I could have made a few tiny errors. Multitasking and let the kettle run dry. Noticed the steam looked kinda blue from the other side of the shop. Had to shorten bow and cut off my handle. This one ended up being my first bendy handle bow and my wife's first bow.
Cutting the arrow shelf on the wrong side of handle. Dang, oh well good thing I know a lot of lefties.
Using draw knife on belly of Elm stave. Dang it worked great on the other limb, but first pass on the second limb ripped a huge chunk out of my beautiful stave leaving me with the possibility of make a 10 lb at 30" draw bow.
There could possibly be a few more
Bjrogg
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How about cutting an arrow shelf in on the wrong side ,making a southpaw when I wanted a rightie.
How about nearly completing an osage bow ,then realizing there were 2 different growth rings on the back.
How about finishing the tiller on a nice elm flatbow,then,(before gluing on tip overlays),stretching its new string out and splitting the end of the limb 5" deep.
I'm sure if I thought about it,I could come up with some more. God Bless
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To many to count and to old to remember. :o Usually it is making corrections to the wrong limb by not marking the areas before taking off the tillering tree.
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My typical mistake is trying to use the drawling to clean up lines, lonly to have it dig in and PPP out a splinter instead of a thin shaving. I fixed that by switching to a farriers rasp. My worst that I can hunk of was when I first started several years ago before I got a clamp. I would pin the stave to a tire by sitting on it. Let's just say that you dont want to get too violent with a stave with lots of large splinters left from splitting. And watch when out when rearing back with a drae knife your youre using your foot to get leverage. I've chopped through some leather boots that way and removed the tips of the rubber soles.
Kyle
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letting my ocd take over and reducing the belly so the rings were perfec[ly uniform.looked pretty but one edge turned out way to thin.unbracing ,sliding the string up a unsanded tip and it caught a splinter,crack!o crap!to name just a couple.
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Cutting myself on the band saw.Sanding away my fingernails to nothing on the belt sander.That's just to myself.Bows...just plain busting them asking too much from a paticular species of wood.
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You haven't made many bows if you have never cut a nock the wrong way....
But I wonder if some of those mistakes might have been avoided if certain beverages had not been imbibed.
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You haven't made many bows if you have never cut a nock the wrong way....
But I wonder if some of those mistakes might have been avoided if certain beverages had not been imbibed.
I wish I had that excuse.
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Had a bow on the tree. Backing up to start to pull on it and tripped and fell backwards pulling the bow to about 36 inches before it snapped.
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^ lol. Hope you were okay.
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I think I have done this twice in my early days;
I had a very sharp drawknife hanging over my workbench. Somehow I knocked it off its peg and reached out and snatched it out of the air as it went by, by the blade of course. Lots of blood on that move. One of those reflex moves without thinking.
I have taken the skin and flesh off the knuckles of my right hand on my belt sander more times than I could count. A 36 grit belt doesn't cut you any slack.
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Cut towards my hand with my KaBar. Trying to pry through a knot. The thought occured to me that I was being unsafe. As soon as the snynaptic gaps stopped firing the inevitable happened. Index finge to the bone and chipped the bone. Was deep in the country fishing with my boy for his birthday. I didnt wanma ruin his good time cause I was stupid so i super glued it, made a splint and left it be.. I was lucky enough to regain feeling after many months.
Had a few beers and operated a bandsaw, ruined the belly of the stave in the common way.
Bagged a ram once. Right in the sidewall. Arrow hit short of the target, skipped across my driveway, and imbeded into the sidewall of the passenger tire of my dodge ram. Broad head did its job.
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Breaking in a bow after finishing it I wasn't prepared for the flight it would take on first shot.I hit the top of the block target sailed the arrow through the window of the shed and went through the umbrella for the patio table.Everytime I look up at the umbrella on a cook out I think about that darn bow...lol I also have glued my fingers to many a bow with CA tite bond doing tip overlays.Me and my friend took out his fence cutting down a mulberry tree in his yard for bows. )-w(
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Most recent bow is beautifully reflexed, horn tipped, made with a takedown sleeve...at maybe half the draw weight intended. Will make a perfect bow...for seven-year-old grandson. Well, I guess that will make me a cooler grandpa, hm?
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I've done the obvious ones: bending the recurve towards the belly, cutting the nocks the wrong way but also not mixing the two part epoxy long enough so it never dries and the worst ones, hurrying the tiller: decide you need to scrape the top limb but not mark it and then remove wood from the bottom limb. Or how about trying to remove a big piece of an ipé/boo limb with a drawknive and splitting the entire limb :-[
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We should make a list of these so that new guys don't have to blunder quite as much as the rest of us. ;D
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Haha! Some of those blunders are epic! My greatest blunder was probably when I thought I'd just "try out" my new belt sander on some scrap wood. Since I was only "trying it out" I didn't worry about putting it properly in the vice, or other safety measures, just put it on the floor. After trying it for a while I turned it off, but it took a few seconds to stop completely, and during those seconds I accidentally touched the belt with my left hand. Schoff! My pinky and ring finger got completely stuck and squeezed in the machine. Immense pain. I was alone, closest neighbor a mile away. Phone far away in the house.
I eventually managed to get into the house and call a friend right when I felt I was going to pass out. He came and gave me a lift to the ER. Walked in there with the machine and everything. They had to pry me loose with some serious pliers. By that time my fingers had been in there for over an hour and the pain when blood started coming back to my fingers again was unbearable. Morphine does help though.
Machines can be pure evil.
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Not a bow building blunder but years ago I got too close to an electric drill on high and got my beard caught in it...twice! (A) It sure took longer to get it out than in. ;D
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My most common and irritating blunder is getting a bow to the final steps of finishing and while I'm smoothing out the edges of the limbs right before final sanding my cabinet scraper slips and puts a big gouge in the back. Happened more times than I want to admit.
Second thing that comes to mind was ruining a beautiful holey character Osage stave by forgetting about it on the stove, steaming away all the water and almost burning down my house. I was so excited about that stave too.
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When I first got started I cut a lot of osage so it could be seasoning. I thought only the staves with thick rings and perfectly straight would work for bow making so I burnt everything else. Hard telling how many staves I turned into ashes back then.
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osage, you know all those twisty staves are actually out in my shed.......
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Okay, thought of another one. I was drilling holes in a plank with an electric drill for some bow-related reason and instead of clamping the wood down like any average-functioning human being would do I decided to hold it in my left hand and drill into it with my right. Well, I didn't realize my left hand was directly behind the drill bit and when it went through the wood it went into my palm. I had to put it in reverse to get it out. :o
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I know I'm not the only one to do this - cut the string (while braced) with the scraper, while getting close to final taper O:) ! Bob
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Done most of the above.
Splitting a little piece of Yew for a temporary knock overlay.... thinks...
I'll just hold the wood in left hand, put the axe on the top and give it a sharp tap on the floor... that'll do it ::)
The axe was V sharp and there was a knot in the wood so it split out and went deep into my finger. Fortunately I had some of those closure strip thingies which held it together and it healed pretty quick. Made me a tad queasy and a lot more careful.
Del
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I cut string grooves in once that were on the opposite angle of what they should be, tough to hold a string loop that way :)
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just the other day for no real reason I stabbed a new x-Acto blade into my finger was cutting some wood to make a measuring jig and went into the finger instead of the wood bled like a stuck pig but no nerve damage
Making miniatures so far I have broken at least four by bending wrong when string them or the other day I was sanding too hard and it bent backwards and snapped it
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I let Pearly use my new nock file the other day. I got it back in 2 pieces a few minutes later.
For those of you who like to file the string grooves backwards check out this fix that Mississippi Dave used on his bow at the Classic a few years ago.
(http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r55/clintanders/Snapbucket/10621A80.jpg)
(http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r55/clintanders/Snapbucket/4345B65D.jpg)
(http://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r55/clintanders/Snapbucket/2E3157A3.jpg)
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Pertty neat Clint, looks like he did it on purpose
Bjrogg
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Ill lock that one away, I plan on doing it again.
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Outlaw, now you've got 2 new files! One for you and one for Pearl!