Sunday 21 January 2018

Roughing out Hazel Staves

My mate JT came over to do a bit on his rapid seasoned Hazel stave as it was too cold and wet for shooting.
We couldn't run a clean straight line down it so marked it out as 2 straight limbs with about  8 inches between them where we'll make a bit of a bend (with steam) next time (Right stave in the pic).
Just deciding where to reduce the stave from 7' down to 74" and where to lay it out took some time. Spent some time trying various tools too, drawknife, spokeshave and axe. The stave is flexing now, but we can't try it on the tiller until the sideways bend is sorted.
Pic shows JT scraping off the bark so we could mark it out more easily with a pencil (note mug of tea and biscuit, vital part of the bow making process) Marking the back allowed the flatter sawn belly to rest on the table of the bandsaw for easier cutting.
Bit of a shock when we came out of the garage after about two and a half hours as there was a good layer of snow!

I had a request for a Hazel primitive from a guy on Archery Interchange, I wasn't that keen at first, but once we got chatting via E-mail it piqued my interest so after lunch I got that roughed out from a well seasoned stave.
The stave has a nice bit of reflex/backset so it should make a nice punchy  bow with a little luck.

Been working on the mk2 shooting machine too, it is vastly improved... hope to get it done for next weekend, assuming the weather is good enough for shooting.


No comments:

Post a Comment