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braided leather bowgrip

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oneeye:
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Start with a piece of paper to get your pattern for your leather. I use leather approx. 3/32" thick.
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for a pistol grip your pattern will look close to this 4 1/4" tall by 4 3/4" wide at top  5 1/2" wide at bottom.  add about an 1/8" all around pattern and cut leather to shape, then soak in warm water.
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apply leather to bow handle and wrap tightly with cord.  (you will need at least 16 feet of cord.I use lawn mower pull start cord because it has a nice braided pattern.) let dry approx. 48 hrs
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take your chord off and you will be left with an embossed piece of leather. mark leather in center of limb and trim one side then do the other. I like to soak it then wrap it again to get a perfect fit it should be just a bit small  by about 1/8" to give a nice tight fit.

oneeye:
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trim leather 1/16" below shelf and bottom of grip. the braid will cover this space. Mark 1/8" inside all edges and punch 1/8" slits all around (punch slits at 45 angle at corners) leaving 1/8" between slits.
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should look like this when done. use a punch and widen all slits a bit, makes lacing easier. 
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place around handle and tie in with artificial sinew. There will be 3 different braided sections each one will use approx 9x the length to be braided of 1/8" leather lace.  rub the lace down with leather conditioner and put in bag (overnight), it will make it nice and soft and you shouldn't have to worry about breakage.

oneeye:
You may want to look up double loop lacing for the next step. here's how it goes for a right handed bow as we want the lacing to lay towards the back of the bow on the arrow rest side. Reverse everything if your a lefty. Start on the opposite side of arrow rest mid way.
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continue this pattern all the way around until you get to this point.

Pat B:
This is very interesting Rich. I love the pressed pattern in the leather.

oneeye:
 Once again you may want to look up double loop lacing. 
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pull the end of the lace out until it looks like this, being careful to maintain the loop and leaving one empty slit.

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Continue lacing as normal then feed lace through loop as shown

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Lace back under the bight not pulling to tight and cross over your lace pushing needle down through both the loop and going through the slit with 2 laces in it. Tighten and even things up making everything appear equally spaced. You will need to run the needle under a few stiches of lace with both ends. Disregard the lace in the background, thats the next step.  ???

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