Blending in snakeskin

[mmgrode]

Hey Gang,
  how does a guy go about blending two snakeskins together at the handle so it looks continuous?  I'm helping a friend build a bow and he's trying to decide whether to add snakeskins to the back.  He likes the look of the handle so much he'd rather not put a leather wrap on it. I would usually overlap the backings, but I think this would look crappy if not covered by a wrap.  Thanks for the help guys, Matt

[theunluckyhunter]

wouldny your hand eventually tear up the skin if not wtapped at the handle?

[Dan Bonner]

I usually put a nice handle back overlay where your hand wraps the back of the bow. Mate the skins to the overlay and your hand never touches them. Just dont sand your overlay to smooth transitions with your back glass or back lam. If you leave the overlay about .010" thick at the ends it will be about flush with your skin butts.

[wingnut]

Matt,

You can skive the ends of the skins and overlap or just butt join them.  If you are careful, you cna make it look like there is no splice at all.  The skins are protected by the finish apply over them.

Mike

[John Scifres]

Overlap the skins where they will join.  Cut through them both carefully and they will match.  Try to get a decent match in the pattern and you should be fine.  

I just finished a bow where I had 2 very nicely matching skins.  Problem was one of them didn't go to the end of the limb.  But the other one was overlong.  I just matched the pattern as best I could and spliced the extra from one to the deficit from the other.  You can tell it's there but it looks OK.  You can also use a little dye to blend them.  Kind of like the woodworking technique used to match different looking woods.

[mmgrode]

Thanks for the help guys!  I'll have to try and convince him to get some skins     Have a great day, Matt