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Impossible snakeskin application

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Eric Krewson:
I found a fresh shed timber rattler skin under my former girlfriend's farm house porch a couple of years ago, it had been shed in the last few minutes and was still wet. I was surprised at how much color it still had in it so I took it home, I thought someday I will try to put this shed skin on a bow to see what happens, it is as thin as wet toilet paper.



I cut it down the middle so I would have a piece with a matching pattern to put on each limb. I dampened it with a wet paper towel, the slightest tug would tear it in two.

I stained the osage limb with leather dye so the skin would have more color, when I brushed TB3 on the limb it picked up quite a bit of color from the stained bows back.

Application was tedious, forcing the glue and air bubbles out from under the skin often cause a slight tear that was easily closed.



The edges of the skin wanted to lift off the bow so I put spring clamps over the places that wanted to lift to hold them down.



Tomorrow I will trim the skin to the edges of the limbs and glue any parts that didn't stick at the edges down with superglue. Because the skin is so thin, I will give both skinned limbs a coat of superglue over the skins to harden them.

More to follow as this project progresses, I haven't made a bow in a while, I used two mismatched billets and made a low poundage bow. One billet was very splintery and actually formed a chrysal in an almost non bending part of the fade. I have never seen a chrysal in an osage bow that I have made and that covers a lot of territory.

 

darinputman:
Sounds like the application will require a lot of attention to detail Eric. Can't think of anyone more suited for the job than you.
   Glad to see your building again.

Eric Krewson:
The next part of the process is to replace missing scales that tore off during the edge clean up, easy to do, a scale from the scrap and a dab of superglue.



After the skin is patched, I dry brush it with leather dye to even out the color.



To make the skin stable and not prone to tearing I brush on a coat of superglue.



The skin dyed, stabilized and read to apply the low luster bow finish. I do need to do more stain and glue cleanup on the edges of the limbs.

JW_Halverson:
Wow! This is just one step easier than twisting a bowstring out of spiderwebs you collect in the woods!

Looks great, Mr. Krewson!

wooddamon1:
Very nice, Eric!

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