got the urge after the season ended to start on another bow.  last couple times I ordered all me stuff from binghams, but a friend and fellow bowyer recommended fedoras.  more choices, better prices, wealth of knowledge, etc.

I'm shooting for a 56 or 58" recurve around 60-65 pounds @ 27.5".  so, my friend and I crunch the numbers and come up with a limb thickness of about .240.  so I settle on on boo parallel, and one boo taper, one veneer of something (figuring on staining or dying the belly and sides of boo).  decide on cocobolo for the veneer and riser and wedges, and my friend had a chunk of padauk I can use fro addition riser material.

please do not take this as a nock on fedora's!  and I must preface this by saying AT LEAST HE CALLED to ask!!!!  but he called and got me all confused.  asked me what I'm building and   convinced me I'd be way under weight and I needed to beef up the thinkness, and use one 040 glass and on 050 glass....figure he's made way more bows than my friend and I so I gotta trust him, so I let him dictate the thicknesses.  

then a few weeks go by, I get a call while in Ohio for my grand-mother-in-laws funeral..that they have more questions.  Call them back and now there are questions on the wedges I ordered.  I ordered a 'parallel-taper' wedge cause the flat spot (parallel) makes the limb mount alignment easier.  he says he can't make them as I ordered them (9" long with a 3.5" parallel, then taper.)  he askes again what I'm building, again I tell him a 3 piece takedown recurve, shooting for 60-65...based on the binghams forms and plans.  he almost sounds offended, and says that they basically built there plans close to his bow designs, and that fedoras is the industry leader and has been so for decades.  fine then, I'm trusting you....so I tell him to do whatever he does on his bows for the wedges.

I finally get the order in a week ago (placed the order at the end of january).  excited to get started.  heres a pic of the stuff I got.




its going to take me a while to get this assembled  as my wife is traveling frequently for work  but figured I get this started....

firt thing is I'm going to regrind the wedges to the way I normally use them....heres how they came:

10.25" long with only a 3 inch taper...and a concave taper at that.  not saying it wont work that way, just not what I'm used to.

and I'm gonna cut the glass in half and tape it with masking tape.

(my main worry about all of this is the beef up in thinkness...hope I don't end up with a 80 pound bow!?!?!?!?)

Are not fedora limbs narrower than most?  Kinda like Black Widows?  Been a while since I seen one.

Yah...was hoping someone with experience in both (binghams and fedoras) could provide some help.  I was kinda thinkin I'd end up needing to go narrower than normal, we'll see.  I'll start with the normal profile and see how it goes...

got no work done today..the honey do list seems to be exponential...

keep us posted, looks like a fun project that I am sure will turn out looking fantastic.  

Gotta love it when someone says someone else's bows are based on "their" design.  Don't think Fedoras has been around as long as recurves have.

Mike

ttt

Most Fadora takedowns  I have seen are made with 2 .002 tapers and glass.

Bill

I used Fedora----Once!

thanks for bringing it back up tarz..

perckerwood (it even feels funny just typing that:) ):

if there were 2 .002 tapers and two .050 glass pieces, that would give a butt thickness of only .104 without the wedge.  impossible!  even if you meant .020 that would still be only .140   are you sure  

remember, I'm not downing fedoras!  just looking for info.

Marc, I think he meant two lams with a .002 per inch taper each, instead of the 1 taper and 1 parallel lam you're using.  Depending on the taper you're using and peckerwood is right about the Fedoras (you're right, it does feel funny typing that) that could add 5# to your bow right there.

I like the looks of the narrow limbs anyway, so keep us updated  

jeremy...got ya...makes a little more sense now...doh!

that could be were alot of the confusion about thickness came from...I was thinking parallels and tapers and he was thinking tapers...weird..

technically I'm actually using 2 parallels and one taper per limb (if ya count the coco veneer)....  

got the glass cut and some other stuff done...and may be doing the glue up this weekend.  got see if david's around as he said he wanted to observe  (read: get covered with epoxy)  

Ok...finally picked up the hotbox, form and hose from my friend Mark on thursday.  I stained the boo with minwax Sedona red...thinking it would set off the paduak part of the riser....

I did a dry run, then last night glued up one limb, leaving it in the box overnight.   have a busy day today so probably wont get to the other limb til tuesday night.  I'll get some pics of the 1st glue-up (this was my first solo glue-up) tonight.

heres a couple pics of Limb #1 after glue-up....this was my first solo glue-up of a glass bow..


side profile:


Belly boo stained with 'sedona red' minwax


another profile


Coco under glass

Looking good Marc!

Man those limbs look nice.  I thought I was going to grow old waiting on the next installment though!  

yah...takin my time with this one  

I wanted to get limb two in the box last night but after 9 hours of work, 3 hours of sales training then ice hockey til 11pm...it was all I could do to sand the glue and peel the masking tape.  I got WAY too much glue on the tape and it took me forever to peel....anybody have any tricks to getting glue covered masking tape off limbs????

I'll get # 2 in the box tonight and  start working on the riser.

Lookin good! I leave the tape on the limbs until it's time for finish. After profiling the limbs the glue is usually gone.

yah PV...gonna retape to protect them...I just had to take a peek  

Yep,Marc,sometimes you just gotta look!!  

second limb cooling in the box now.  we're leaving for disney this weekend so I don't know when I'll get to the riser....

That Cocobolo looks awesome!!!