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51-1/2" BL shorty build-along *finished!!!*

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NeolithicMan:
Ive got some BL staves ive been seasoning and trying to decide what to make from them. I have not yet used BL and was wondering if aligning the tips as soon as the stave is near finished front profile is the best aproach with this wood. I work with a lot of oak, hickory, HHB, and a bit of osage. i dont align tips until I get it bending to about brace hieght. am I missing out on a better aproach or is it personal preference for when to align tips?

huisme:
BL crushes its belly more readily than a lot of woods because of the disparity between tension and compression strength, so it's wise to center the string as soon as possible to keep the forces pulling/pushing over the entire surface of the working wood evenly.

That being said, I usually fix the alignment right before first brace as long as it's not completely obvious and severely off-center.

Working on the pics right now  :D

NeolithicMan:
thanks, cant wait to see more of this build a long. really like the handle too. something about a knot in a handle looks cool I think

huisme:
I should have some more up later today. The handle really looks nice with the knotty pattern ;D

huisme:
these are the tools I'll be using for pretty much everything. I even start the knocks with my wee knife you see on the machete. I like this machete to the ability to switch between a concave and convex cutting edge, and I've just had it for forever. I use it for the rough profiling, a lot of the floor tiller, and removing sapwood when I'm not planning on using a shallow ring. the rasp is for the initial cleanup after the machete as well as some finer tillering, narrowing the tips to their final dimensions, etc. The drawknife is, of course, used for chasing rings, and also as a scraper to clean up any rasp marks along the belly. the knife is for small details, as you'd expect.


Now when I say I use the machete I don't mean I take full strokes and tear off chunks of wood. I spend at least a hundred strokes profiling each side of the grip, and about as many for the limbs as well. When it comes time to remove wood from the belly I try to take half an inch along the belly at a time, ensuring that tear outs won't go deeper into the wood.


Aaand my not-so-primitive tillering tool of choice. With this I get a side-on view from the word go, helping me immensely with floor tiller and everything thereafter.


I work the handle down very slowly with the machete, keeping a little more wood than would be needed to continue the limb taper due to the slightly narrower handle. Once I'm close to an acceptable shape I clean it up with the rasp.



The knot is close enough to gone I'm not half as worried about it now. I'm still watching it, but it's a lot less invasive than I guestimated.


The power went out just as I was putting the pot on the stove to bend the lower limb slightly to match the upper, but then I suddenly decided I loved the profile as it is and wouldn't change a thing ::) I'm still going to have to bend the tips into alignment, but they're not so severe that I can't start looking at the floor tiller a little.

That's all I've got pics for right now. I wish I had a tripod and timer to take better shots of what I'm doing, but let me know what more I could do to make this a decent buildalong.

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