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Shop tips and shortcuts

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Coo-wah-chobee:
Hey Kenneth-What a work ethic-haha-bob

Pat B:
When I started limiting my tool kit to only a few tools, my bows turned out better. My main tool kit contains a draw knife, a couple of wood rasps(one 4 way, a farriers,  a #49 Nichols{thanks TomB} and a scraper. I still use a band saw to eliminate excess bulk but from floor tiller until the first shot I mainly use a scraper with an occasional hit with a rasp.
   This has slowed down my process but has given my mind a chance to keep up, and for me, that's very important.
   One thing that I don't do enough of is experimenting with "other" woods. For those that do, thanks! If all we had was osage and yew for bows, just think what all of us would be missing. Primitive man used what was available not what everyone told him to use.     Pat

Badger:
Pat, i think thats good advice, I have really leaned out my tool boxes as well. Even though a moisture meter is not primitive i really recomend getting one if you can afford it, I have had many surprises regarding moisture that were less than desirable. Someone a few years ago posted a primitive moisture meter, it let you know when wood was too damp or dry i think but for the life of me cannot remeber how he did it, anybody here remember, I do know there were not a lot of responses to the thread. Steve

Primitive1:
I think it was Jim Hamm who mentioned that the weight of the wood would decrease when moisture escapes.  In that light, you could weigh the bow until it stops losing weight and know you're where you need to be.  Is that it?

GregB:
When making bows from staves, I first layout the front view (view when the bow would be resting on its belly, and looking at it from directly above). We cut out the excess wood using a bandsaw...when cutting along the limbs I cut outside the line with these initial cuts.  After cutting around the front view using this technique, I then layout the fades and limb thickness leaving them on the heavy side which I vary depending on the bow wood and type of bow. When using the band saw to cut out the limb thicknesses, I cut on the outer edge of the line and angle the stave when cutting the limbs to ensure that I'm thick enough on the lower edge that is resting on the bandsaw table. I make four cuts, on along each limb edge, which when finished will leave a crown on the belly. I then remove the majority of the crown carefully with the bandsaw.

At this point I step my way through the rasps, and finally scrappers to get down to my lines. Using the scrappers last ensure that all saw cut marks are removed when you reach your bow layout lines. Then after a session with the roughed in bow on a form for straightening and reflexing,  I'm ready for floor tillering, then using the tillering board to get to brace height, and finally the tillering tree for finishing the tiller.

Greg

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