My friend Darrell (Lechwe) bought a Black Widow SAV last year at Kalamazoo.  He liked it so much, he wanted to get another, but wanted something really special...a "dress" bow so to speak    .

I just happen to know my friend Mike Pyeatt (Leftyfred) supplies Black Widow with all their exotic limb and handle material.  So we went over Mikes place to pick out some pretty wood

   


Here's Mike and his wife this past weekend at Kalamazoo:

I saw some very nice wood at that booth.  What did he pick?

Mike

I'm sure most of us have seen the Tour-N-Tuning video by Black Widow.  

I thought you all would like to see what happens to the wood before it gets to the factory to be made into bows.

Here are Darrell and Mike going over the intricacies of a couple blocks of Bubinga:



I am still amazed how Mike could look at that plain old block of wood and picture what was on the inside just dying to come out  

This is pretty cool.  I was shooting at the club with Steve and Darrell just a few hours ago and got to see this beauty in action.

Now that Darrell has his wood picked out, Mike can get to work.

The first step is the band saw:



Black Widow has precise and exact standards for the pieces of wood for their riser and limb laminations.  Each model has it's own set of requirements and Mike has all that information documented to fill their orders accurately.

After the bandsaw, the pieces are taken over to the power planer to get them closer to flat and the proper dimension for the Widow works...

The final step is this super duper belt sander.  This thing will take as little as .0001" on a pass.

Mike checks them after each pass with calipers to make sure they are   exactly  right.

cool

Then, everything is packaged up and sent down to Missouri to the fine craftsmen at Black Widow and it comes back in a couple months looking like this:





Hopefully Darrell will come in tomorrow and post some better pictures of his new baby.  It is simply  STUNNING

I liked Darrell's Bubinga Beauty so much, I bought a set of the same vaneers to send out to my buddy Dave Windauer.  I feel a one piece Silvertip calling to me  

Wowzer!!!!  That is down right purdy!!

Looks great!

Dude! My next SAX is going to be Bubinga or Kingwood. Beautiful! What do the vaneers run?

Stunning it is    not everyone gets to pick his bow from the start to the finish. Has to be very rewarding.

Highpoint,

No extra charge over the standard "X" on the Widow to pick your own.  To just buy vaneers, you'd just have to get a hold of Mike, they are all different.

Thanks for sharing!

Well, it certainly IS a fantastic looking bow, but you might get an argument from some on the MOST beautiful claim...makes me want another new Widow though!  The explanation of the process just in cutting the lams gives a little insight as to why they are a quality bow.  Thanks for the pics, look forward to some more.

Beautiful!

that is too cool. what a beauty of a bow!!

NICE

That was pretty cool.

That is a very nice looking bow.