Bow-making Blunders

[upstatenybowyer]

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 

[Pat B]

I was bending recurves in a bow and when done I realized one was bent up, the other down.     

[JW_Halverson]

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!

[Eric Krewson]

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.

[PaulN/KS]

Bandsaw...  Running the stave through and not tilting it the right direction thus leaving a whole lot less of the belly to work with. 

[upstatenybowyer]

Yikes! those are some classics. Paul, I've done that exact same thing more than once!

[Bob W.]

Too many to list!!

[chamookman]

I did the string nocks the wrong way thing, explaining how to do so in front of a class    ! Bob

[Stick Bender]

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 !

[bjrogg]

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

[PeteC]

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

[Linc]

To many to count and to old to remember. Usually it is making corrections to the wrong limb by not marking the areas before taking off the tillering tree.

[Mo_coon-catcher]

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

[bushboy]

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.

[BowEd]

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.