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Building the Vine Maple Bow - Finished

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Gordon:
I make 20" my new reference point and repeat the process of pulling the bow back in increments of one inch while monitoring the poundage at my reference point and removing wood when the poundage at my reference point begins to drop.

Visually the bow does not look like it is bending evenly. But you have to take into account character and unevenness in the limbs. The vine maple I harvest around my parts almost always has character, uneven reflex and whoop-de-dos and so you will rarely have a visually circular bend if you tiller such a bow correctly. The best way to accomplish proper tiller is to let the limb thickness guide you rather than what your eyes see. With the exception of knots and dog legs which need to be left a little thicker than the surrounding area, you want to strive for an even thickness taper down the length of the limbs.



Until now I have left the fades and the last six inches of the tips a little stiff. A common mistake that novice bowyers make is to take too much off the fades - this is a sure fire way to end up with an unrecoverable hinge or a lighter draw bow than you planned. But now I am going to remove excess wood from the fades. Do this slowly and monitor the thickness of the limbs through the transition into the fades carefully. Getting a perfect transition through the fades  takes practice and you are better off keeping the fades a little on the stiff side until you get the hang of it.



I feather the handle into fades and begin rounding the edges of the limbs.





And here is the bow pulled to 24" - only three more inches to go!

Gordon:
The string alignment has remained true to this point, so now it is safe to narrow the outer limbs and tips to their final dimensions. I like self-nocks to be about 1/2 inch in width. Until now I have left the tips a little stiff. I also work the tips down to their final thickness so they will bend a bit.







Narrowing the tips has just about obliterated the old string groves so I have to make new ones. I start by rounding the tips and then repeating the steps for making string groves that I described earlier in this build-a-long.



I sand the newly cut string groves with 150 grit sand paper and then burnish the shoulders with a burnishing tool. This helps prevent the nocks from being cut by the string.

Gordon:
Since I've narrowed the outer limbs I slightly bevel the edges along the back to prevent splinters from pulling up.



Now I am going to finish shaping the nocks. I start by rough tapering the sides of using a rasp.





I taper the belly side of the nock using a rasp and then bevel all the edges in preparation for rounding.





I do the final shaping of the nocks with a small carving file.

Gordon:
I adjust the brace to shooting height and tiller the bow to the desired draw length. The bow ends up pulling 45# @ 27". This bow will make a fine weapon for hunting deer.





Next up - making an arrow rest.

Blayne:
So awesome. Thanks for putting the work into sharing this!

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