Getting close to the point where I can finish up this bow I am working on.  I was doing some work to lower the weight and put a short string on for the first time.  Thats when I noticed right away that my riser separated.  My heart just dropped.  I have been really excited about this bow and have been taking my time with it.  Please tell me I can fix this somehow.  

Riser was glued up with TB3.  The separation is above the shelf only, so far.

 

 
 

Does your bow bend through the riser?

Are the limbs done with smooth on??

Lakota
I don't think so.  But I should mention that the gap only appears when the bow is strung with actual string.  Once string is taken off, the gap closes up.

Mike, Everything is smooth-on except riser.

I use tb3 on my all wood creations, but have never used it in conjunction with smooth on, as you have. It looks as if the bow has plenty of weight designed in it. I will defer to some one with more experience here.

If it were mine, I would probably put it on a tiller tree and as the crack opens see if I could get some smooth on in the area in question and then put a heat lamp on it for the 4 hours stated on the can. Never had to try it though

I thought about that.  With the bow strung up, the gap is just big enough to see a little light thru it.  I haven't tried putting it on the tree to see if it opens up any more.  Will try later and see what happens.  I really don't want to loose this bow.

Are both sides of the riser showing the same?

Right now its just above the shelf in the narrow area.  The handle is still solid but I imagine the separation will continue to work its way down if not fixed now.  The separation does go all the way thru.

If this is a low weight bow I would string it stress it as far as you dare to open the gap and mix a little smoothon warmed in a microwave oven to thin and work into the gap until filled and clamp and leave for 48 hours cold.

I agree with Blkbird, I have never used smooth on but my experience with Urac when it's warm in the garage is that it's runny enough you could open up the gap and keep squishing some of that down into the void then gently clamp it closed. You may have clamped it too tight to begin with and squeezed all your TBIII glue out, then ended up with a dry glue joint. You can't clamp TB glue too tight and I always ruff up my two mating surfaces real good before hand so I minimize the chances of a dry glue joint.

Good luck!

Well I put it on the tree and gave it a tug to see how much the gap would open.  I was worried I wouldn't have much of a gap and it would be hard to get the glue all the way in.  WELL, that wasn't a problem.  Got to about 3/4 draw and pop.  The rest of the joint came undone.  Luckily it all came apart clean.  So the problem of getting the smooth on in there isn't a problem now.  I left it on the tree as it was and shoved as much s-o in there as I could.  Its all clamped up and sitting under a lamp for the night.  May unwrap it tomorrow night and start sanding all the s-o off, but won't string it up till after a couple days.

Hope it works!!

Did someone say awhile back that TB is not resistant to heat?  

Did you have it in a heat box?

If so, I'll mark that down in my mental notes...

I am sure that was the problem.  I was using heat strips (for the first time) and left it on high for WAY to long.  I have been waiting for something to happen because of that.  Just hope this is fixable.  I will be using s-o more often after this probably.

I had a seperation in some actionboo in the bow I'm working on now.  It wasen't my glue joint but a lamination joint from the factory.  One at the fade and two others on the side of the limb. I filed it with urac and tried my best to pack it in there.  Smacked it in with my finger.  After smacking and pushing and rubbing the urac in there until I thought I had it as full as I was going to get in there I put it back in the form, bolted it together and blew the hose back up.  Put in the oven at around 90 degrees for 20 hours or so then let it cool for 10 or more hours I can't really remember the exact hours.  Got it out and they had completly disappeared.  So as of right now its going good.  I've only put a long string on it so far and haven't had any showings of the seperations but everything might fly all to hell with the short string but just gotta try and see.

oh duh.  Why didn't I just put it in the form.  That would have been easier.  Those clamps were a pain to put on with everything round now.  Hope yours works out D

Thanks Matt, that is good for all of us to know!  

if anyone ever has the need to try and get super thin CA glue into a crack, split, seperation etc. a very good method is using a syringe. you can get them at a pharmacy. if you get wicking type CA glue thats even better as it will suck right into a crack as small as .002. i've done it. it works well. glad it worked out for you the way it did. don

Well that explains it, I thought maybe you had a dry glue joint Matt and I didn't know that you heated your Tite Bond glue, you should stick with Urac or smooth on if you heat it. Those two are better resistant to heat, I heated my limbs several times trying to take out a bit of twist and I used Urac. Never had any hint of it seperating.
I hope it all works out for ya.

I've never used CA glue, could somebody please explain to this Redneck from Missouri just exactly what that is?      
I've even looked in the stores and haven't seen anything that says CA glue on it.