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Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: Autumnarcher on February 05, 2020, 06:42:10 PM
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Doing dry run today, laying everything up on form. Get the back lams in form, set riser on top and - WHAT THE....????
Big chip out of edge/corner right at fadeout. I have no idea how/when this happened. So now what? I could jgnore it, have a big ugly glue joint, and higher liklihood of failure.
I could narrow bow profile down to about 1-1/8” wide, and lose 8-10# off my weight.
I could cut riser down to 16” and shorten bow to 56” and still be under target weight aor scrap the riser.
Lets just say I cussed a few times when I noticed it.
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Might be able to cut a little wedge and superglue it in? Worth a shot before cutting or trashing the riser in my opinion.
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Might be able to narrow your width to get rid of it & if you put in a buffer in your stack weight wise you might be ok I have narrowed a few with out losing a lot of weight !
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You might try glueing in a piece to fill gap and run a thin piece of glass over the top to extend 1-2” beyond fade. Of course you would need to feather the ends.
You could glue that to the riser and fade ends then do your bow glue up.
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dutchman
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Can you grind your own lams? If so you could grind the riser back equally on both ends and add a power lam to the back and belly side fades of the riser. If you can zoom in on the one piece recurve I posted on the what did you do thread you'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about.
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If you can find the piece that came off, super glue it back on.
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If it aint high $$ wood scap it. Or glue a piece in there and work it down.
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I would glue a thin piece to the back of the riser and regrind the fade.
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At least it happened during dry run and not during glue up. Chipping a fade during glue up sucks. Trust me, I know.
That is the bad thing with walnut. It can be very brittle. I have never trusted walnut fades for this reason. If my riser fades are walnut, I put a power lam in to take some of the stress.
If it were me, I’d drop it down to a 16” riser and put an 18” power lam on the backside.
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How wide are you making your limbs? You'll be surprised how much you lose even at 1.25" wide. I would proceed and take the bow to shape and then see what you have. With a lam covering it I dont think it's an issue. You probably wont even notice it. I'm a lefty so I would just make my window on that side. If it will bother you that much in would make it the lower limb and then style it to grind it out
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What I decided to do after weighing several options, is shorten riser to 16”, and shorten bow from 58 to 56”. Not a big deal, beats scrapping a riser I put a lot of time into. Lessons learned. Thats what matters most to me. Appreciate everyone's suggestions and input. Glueing up tomorrow, could never got here without y’alls help along the way. Bow will likely cone in a bit lighter than target, thats fine by me. Certainly there will be more after this one.
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There would be very little of that spot left by the time the bow was finished.. if you saw a little glue there, it could be touched up with markers. It would not increase your chance of bow failure.
BigJim
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There you go, From a Master bow maker.
56 is short, what's you draw length?
I have broke them off too and glued them back on. :thumbsup:
I'v had pieces that were only 16" long and make a power lam 18" long to go on top of the riser.
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Markers are your friend sometimes :goldtooth:
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I was in the middle of a glue up once, had the lams glued and stacked, the riser all covered in glue and was setting it on the stack, I knocked everything off the form and onto the floor. The epoxy on the lams picked up all kinds of dirt and wood chips which I had to scrape off, and chipped TWO opposite fade corners of the riser. I pitched it and made another one right away. Had to do it before the glue started to cure on the lams. I had epoxy all through the hair on my forearms the whole time. Lol. That was the fastest riser prep I've ever done. It worked. I hate those panic moments.
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I would go ahead and glue it up then narrow it from the chipped side until it's no longer visible. It's going to effect draw weight for sure but that's nothing compared to a lost project.
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I would toss it and start over cause walnut is not strong enough for a handle anyway.
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I would toss it and start over cause walnut is not strong enough for a handle anyway.
Careful there!
I use Walnut all the time. This one is all Walnut, limbs and handle. It bends well into the fades.
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I learned my lesson the hard way when I first started, walnut was readily available and cheap and I broke a couple of handles then talking to other bowyers they had the same experiance . It may be ok for in the limbs but not in the handle unless you are making a light bow .
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Tim, did the walnut in your bows break in the center of the handle or at the fades and was it stand alone or did it have another wood laminated in? I have a really nice piece I'd like to use that I was going to laminate with another wood. I've been a little nervous about using it.
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I’m not a fan of walnut risers, not when other woods are cheap and a better choice, ie. Bolivian rosewood.
That being said, what I would have done is shorten the riser as was your plan. Get rid of the bad spot. Then make a power wedge out of something tough. I do this by making about a .070 parallel and tapering the last 2 inches on each end to nothing. Whatever you want your finished riser length to be, make the PW an inch longer, as the fades are so much finer. For example if your plans call for an 18” riser but all you have is 16” or 17” to work with, then make your power wedge 19”. It would let you turn that shorter riser into an 18” riser then you could have went with the 58” bow. Make sense? It also adds a lot of strength to a marginally strong riser wood.
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I use walnut all the time... but I never build a riser with out an I beam anymore.
With a G10 I-beam, I can build with nearly any wood and never have to worry about strength.
BigJim
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"I’m not a fan of walnut risers, not when other woods are cheap and a better choice, ie. Bolivian rosewood"
Damn Chad! Mind sharing where you get Bolivian Rosewood for less than $5.00 a B.F.?
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I’m with Flem and Jim. Walnut is relatively cheap and beautiful. Love using it in risers.
That being said....I don’t think I would ever make a riser out of a solid block of walnut. I either laminate it with other woods, or would use several pieces laminated together so grain doesn’t run thru the entire riser. I also prefer to keep it out of the fades. Not because I fear failure. Just because it chips so easily when you get down to paper thin.
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In MN the black walnut is quite light and soft. I understand that other varieties of walnut are heavier and stronger.
Since I have to warranty every bow I build I don’t mind spending 15.00 for a longbow riser block. I consider that cheap.
The type of bow you build and the poundage makes a huge difference in what you can cannot get by with. I also like to cut the shelf in as deep as I can get by with.
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When I use walnut, It is generally stabilized, but since I use a 3/4" G10 I beam in every bow, stabilizing isn't necessary. All of my bows can then be cut past center without concern.
I have some incredible claro walnut burl that just has to be seen. I have also never had a riser issue that was related to a species of wood...except snakewood.
BIgJIm