longbow build along
Sun 12 December 2010
I tried to see how cheaply I could build a long bow so I popped down to the local builders merchants and bought two pieces of wood here in holland its called just hardhout (hardwood) and it never names anything, so not knowing anything about wood I looked for something light for the belly and with a nice gain hoping it was ipe ;) then a slightly darker wood for the core wood that was fairly thin but springy.. So my technical wood selection done I loaded it up in the care and brought it home. Once home I sanded both ides of the wood down to take of the layer of oil and then wiped it down with acatone (nail polish remover!!). Next I mixed up some cascamite and applied it to one side of the wood with a brush this was a bit messy and next time ill find up latex gloves!!. I used two old inner tubes to tightly wrap up the two pieces of wood After letting this all stand for 6 hours to set I unwrapped the inner tube leaving a messing stick with glue everywhere!! (mental note to self don’t use as much glue next time) After removing most of the rubber that stuck on the wood!! I marked the wood up I marked the centre of the bow with a pen mark I marked another 3inches above this line and another 1 inch below, this will become the handle area and also the marks where the taper will run to. Next I marked the tips in the centre and then marked 3/4 of an inch tip using the centre reference line. I then took a straight edge! and place it on the tip mark and the edge of the handle area mark And mark my taper lines now the basic shape is marked out and it now requires cutting out the blank..