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Building the Vine Maple Bow - Finished

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Gordon:
arron, I will steam a handle for about 45 minutes. I've never had one break, but handles treated as such will have a tendency to spring back if you do not leave them in the form long enough. I usually leave a handle in the form for 24 hours after bending.

Thank you for all the nice comments!

Gordon:
I let the stave sit for a week and you can see it has gained some reflex. Vine maple that grows under high tension will do that. As you remove wood from the belly the wood cells along the back seem to contract and pull the bow into reflex. I've worked with a lot of different wood and this is the only species that I have encountered that does that.



A stave with this much reflex is quite challenging to tiller which calls for some unorthodox methods. To start I clamp the bow securely to my bench vise and put a stop on one limb. I then push on the opposing limb with my body and watch how it bends.





I switch limbs and repeat the previous step. Based on how the limbs bend I make marks on the belly indicating where I need to remove wood or not.



I'll repeat the preceding steps a number of times until I've removed enough wood that the stave is bending a bit easier. Then I place the stave between two saw horses and push down with my weight and evaluate how the limbs respond. It is helpful to take a picture of yourself doing this so you can evaluate the bend from a another perspective.

Gordon:
I am constantly checking to make sure that the limb thickness is more or less even on both edges. If one edge is getting thinner than the other then I take more wood off of the thick side while working the limbs down. An "X" marks the edge where I do not want to remove wood.



I'll frequently switch between the saw horse and bench vice to get different perspectives on the bending limbs.





I've got it bending to where I think it is ready to brace and in the process I've managed to work out some of the reflex. I know that some of you will think that I have induced unwanted set into the bow. But I assure you that so far I have hardly exercised the belly wood. All I've done is begin to unwind the cellular contraction process that I spoke of earlier. My goal is to end up with a little less reflex than what I started with when I began working on this stave.

Gordon:
In preparation for bracing, I am going to make some string nocks. I leave the tips pretty wide at this point in case I need to make some minor adjustments to the string alignment. Using a spoke shave and/or rasp I round the sides and belly of the tips and feather them into the mid-limb.







When the tips are nicely rounded I make a diagonal mark on the back one inch from each tip. This marks the spot where the string groves will be cut.



Using a needle rasp or file I cut a notch on each side of the tip using the mark as my guide. This helps ensure that the string groves will line up nicely when they are done.

Gordon:
After I make the initial starter notches, I carefully cut string groves on each side making sure that they line up nicely on the belly.

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