Draw Down

Ok folks, been working on the bow for a few more days.  Lost track of the hours but took a bunch of crappy photos.  Lighting in my garage sucks in the evenings.  I culled through them and you will see them here shortly.

I left you with a picture of the first draw to 20 inches in my last post.  From there I slowly worked the limbs down in thickness until I was getting a fairly even bend in both limbs.  I noticed a hinge near the base of what is now my top limb.  I worked it down as much as I could but I really don't want to work the limbs down any further.  I am getting around 45 to 48 pound draw now at 28" (some of you have expressed a need for a glossary of terms.  It will be added shortly in a separate page linked somewhere on the right I believe)

Once I reached this point I smoothed out the limbs with a file and a bit of sanding just to remove any sharp edges that may hamper or damage my bow string later.  So here is what it looks like at 28" draw.  It is not perfect, as I said, but with experience, each bow will look better.

drawn to 28"

I purchased a fishing scale that reads up to 100lbs and has a good T-Bar handle on it and used that to measure the weight of the draw by pulling down on the string to 28".  The scale measures consistently at right around 48lbs when I pull to 28"

My next step was to cut an arrow shelf into the bow.  The reason for this is that with the added wood of the Paduak riser I feel that the handle area will be stiff enough to allow me to shoot my arrows closer to center for more accuracy and I will not have to worry as much about the spine weight of my arrows. (more on that later)  It is still not at exactly center, but it is a bit closer to center than my last bow.

Arrow shelf and block of paduak handle.

 As you can see in the above picture, the handle is still looking more like a brick and is far too wide and sharp to hold.  So I got out the rasp and worked and worked and worked.  The paduak has a really nice smell when you start cutting it.  One of the things I like about working wood, is the aroma of freshly cut wood.  Anyways in about 2 hours I had the final shape done and it fits my hand nicely.  Even my wife said she could use it with her smurf sized hands.

Smoothed out handle.

 Once I had the rough shape worked with the rasp I went and smoothed it out with a file and coarse sand paper.  At this point my arms were tired, and it was dark o'clock so I packed it in for the evening.

Next up, building a string and bringing life to an ancient weapon system.