Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Muskyman on October 04, 2022, 08:31:31 am
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I was trying to use a piece of a split I had left over from my staves to practice chasing a ring. The piece had really small rings and I kept going through to the next ring. On something like that do you use a scraper or something else to keep from doing that? As with most of the bow making process this isn’t exactly easy either.
Thoughts,
Mike
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It is all about experience and learning to use your tools which takes time. I can chase any chasable ring with a big debarking drawknife because I have used it for 26 years. I don't use it exclusively on tight rings, I take off enough wood to start seeing patches of the early wood and do the rest with a scraper very carefully.
On the tightest ring I ever chased I only used a scraper; it took me 8 hours to chase the ring from one end of the stave to the other. On these types of staves, I use a round nose scraper quite a bit, particularly around pin knot clusters and in valleys on the back.
Learning to put a proper sharp hook on your scraper is imperative. I have used a variety of things to roll the hook and used a screwdriver shank for years. A while back I bought a real scraper burnisher rod, this was daylight and dark compared to my screwdriver shanks, I can get a good hook very easily now.
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I have a burnishing rod but only bought a rectangular scraper and I know I’m going to have to get some others, a round one etc, etc.. I have watched a few videos of people showing how to chase a ring and was actually just trying to practice a little bit with this piece of wood. I can’t help but get better at it but found out after a few attempts that a draw knife is not going to be the only answer for me.. I feel confident that with time and some practice I’ll get better but after a few tries though I’d ask on here and maybe get some advice I haven’t thought of.. I’ve got some scrap pieces that I’ll keep practicing on and hopefully get tuned into it a little better.. trying to learn now before I start trying to work on a nice piece and destroy it. Going to try and find more videos that might help and keep practicing on my junk stuff. If I ever succeed with it I’ll be happy and very careful with my good staves.. I’d rather spend a week on one as to turning it into firewood
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My site may help.
http://traditionalarchery101.com/osage.html
Jawge
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I only use the scrapers in the picture for ring chasing, I have never liked the gooseneckk ones for the task. The big heavy debarking drawknife is my ring chaser.
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Do you use a rasp as well while chasing a ring Eric
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No rasping, the picture is one I made years ago and kept on file for the ever-present question that the newbie people ask, "what tools do I need to make a bow".
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Okay thanks, I had never seen anyone in the videos I’ve watched
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Well this last attempt I made it over half way maybe 5/8 to 3/4 of the way down the stave before I actually violated the ring I was chasing.. the rings on this piece are paper thin so I’m not going to beat myself up to bad.
Eric, I can see 8 hours happening on this piece of wood. And I doubt I can make a bow out of it. Now that I’ve screwed up I’m going to start over.
And I had already read your tutorial Jawge good info on there.
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Any time you spend on practice piece is time we’ll spent. Much better than ruining your good stave. And you can even practice tilling on scrape pieces to.
I do like Eric. I Toto the crunchy early wood. I can usually feel it and hear it with my draw knife. I leave most of the early wood and then switch to scrapers. I always clean up the early wood with scraper to be able to see where I’m at. It can be really easy to get lost and on the wrong ring if you don’t keep cleaning it up as you go. The early wood will scrape off easily but the late wood will take more abuse with scraper and not be violated as easily as it would with draw knife.
Go lighting is a most for my old eyes.
Bjrogg
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Bjrogg, I’ve got the old eyes thing too. I’ve got about 4 or 5 pairs of glasses hanging right on a wire by my workbench and use the thicker ones for my close up work..
What’s the opinions about maybe a elb with thi Osage limb it’s probably a little less than 70 inches in length. Or could I make a flat bow with it
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Well I made some more firewood, I guess I did anyway. Started out chasing a ring on this Osage limb and got about half way through it and it was going great.. then when I just got past the handle area there was a little funny spot and when I got past it I noticed I had gotten into the ring below my target ring.. thought okay I read something that said I could change to a different ring at the handle if the handle doesn’t bend.. so I kept going and next thing I’m into the lower ring. At that point I just quit out of frustration. If I can get back onto a solid ring and take it back to the handle area will that fly if I put a piece on the belly side so it doesn’t bend there or it it indeed firewood. This is the limb
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Yes chase the lowest ring you are on back to the handle. You can switch rings there if you have to.
I think you should be able to get almost any kind of bow you want out of that limb. It’s always surprising how little Osage is needed to make a bow
Having said that I don’t really have a lot to go on. But the rings look good to me and seems wide enough although a little hard to tell for sure from picture.
Bjrogg
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I like to keep the bevel down on my draw knife when chasing rings, it keeps it from digging in.
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Bjrogg that limb is about 1&1/2 inches wide and about the same for the thickness, maybe a little less at the handle area, and right at the handle it kind of has what I’ll call a gull wing shape. That’s where I lost the original ring I was chasing. I’m going to try to get back onto another ring and go from there and see what happens. My original thought was to practice on this piece and take it to about floor tiller and then put it away to dry.
And Badger I do keep the bevel down down. I’m not sure what I did but as I came up over the bottom of the gull wing shape on the second half out of the handle area I just blew it I guess. All I know from sure is I had went down into the ring below the one I was chasing.. I think that the growth ring got thinner in that area, not really sure. My lighting is not the best where my vise is at and I’m thinking I’ll get better lighting for that area and hope that that helps..
Thanks,
Mike
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That stave is not fire wood. Sinew back it if nothing else works out for you. Nothing wrong with a sinew backed Osage bow.
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Okay here’s another question. How much sinew does it take to back a typical 1 1/2 in bow that’s approximately 6 ft in length? Also where do you get it? I was looking online and saw some at 3rivers One oz. Pre pounded approximately 12 inches long.
Found the answer to the how much part of my question. 3rivers said 8-10 ozs
I’ve really got a lot to learn about making bows. Now I need to find some good tutorials on putting sinew on.. have seen hide glue or barge cement to put it on. Any comments about that?
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Also use your scraper often, every few inches to keep it cleaned up where you can see it good.
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M man. hide glue or, tite bond 2 ,and 3 will get the job done. Before you sinew though try Brogg's idea. It may save you from sinewing the bow, but through time you will want to try sinew any how. Get on utube for sinew backing a bow. It is not that hard, and their are plenty of tutorials that shows how to do it. Good luck with your bow.
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After some thinking about what Bjrogg said about how small a piece of Osage you can make a bow from I started thinking about a piece that I had tossed over into my wood pile. I had looked at it several times before but, it still had the bark on it and I just left it there till this afternoon. Got it out and peeled the bark off it and here’s what I ended up with. It’s got thin rings but it’s out of the scrap pile
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Another picture
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I’ve made lots of nice bows with pieces like that. You can still go with a stiff handle by gluing on thin laminates to build up the handle area. If you try to just glue on a block it might pop off if the area wants to bend
Bjrogg
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The other end is thinner than the one pictured, also a wedge shape. One side is about 3/8 the other about 3/4 to 1 inch and about 1/2 in the center. First I’ll have to get a ring chased on it. I’m going to really try and take my time because the growth rings are pretty small. It’s a green piece so I’m thinking if I can chase the ring I’ll rough out the bow try to get th limbs to almost floor tiller, or should I just forget about chasing the ring, shape it out and seal the back of the bow and put it away..
Question, is it harder to chase a ring on a piece of wood that’s not been seasoned and still has a high moisture content?
Picture of the other end
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FWIW...I use an ancient draw knife that I picked up from an antique shop in town that was well used before I bought it. I have backed 20-30 staves, and I have never sharpened it. It is ridiculously dull, and I love it. It's dull enough that it will not get away from me and dig in...I have to work it good. It is "sharp" enough to get through the late wood with some elbow grease, but the dullness is such that when I hit the early wood, even if it is super thin ringed, I can easily feel the crunch. The duller the instrument, the greater the tactile feedback. There is a happy medium, but I think that happy medium is much duller than most folks would think to ever let their drawknife get.
I'm pretty sure I could go end to end with the draw knife in one go and clean it all up with a scraper at the end, but I never make it more than 4 inches before I get paranoid and go to the scraper to ensure I am still on one ring edge to edge. I use a mystic scraper which is super thick and non flexible vs the typical cabinet scrapers I see most people using, because I will often use that scraper to remove a ring of late wood and go thru the early wood to my target ring on super thin ringed staves...a typical flexible thin cabinet scraper would take forever to do that. I have not run into a stave yet that the super dull draw knife and that mystic scraper would allow me to get through without getting into the wrong ring. Just get a side to side clean spot backed on one end of the stave and go two inches of early wood crunching at a time before cleaning it up with the scraper...rinse and repeat. If you feel yourself getting impatient or in a hurry, put it down, go have a beer, and come back later.
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Yup just take your time. Only go a few inches at a time. First with draw knife leaving some early wood and then cleaning it up with the scraper. The biggest secret is just not getting lost.
I see people try to hop around to different spots on the stave. Very bad. It’s impossible to know if you are chasing the same ring.
Start in one spot and follow the same ring from one end to the other. Or at least from end to handle
Bjrogg
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Being patient is probably going to be my weak point in this process but, I’m learning that I’m going to have to be to get where I need get. I think that walking away from my stave is probably going to be key for me. Funny thing is that I’m not impatient with a lot of things in life but, this is one I’m going to learn to be. I’m slowly seeing that I’m going to have to slow down and relax about getting to the end result with this.
Thanks for your thoughts and help,
Mike
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that is exactly the same problem I have, normally I'm patient enough but give me a stave and I'll work on it until it's ruined :fp
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As Eric said. You will get more comfortable with your tools and the process. Things will speed up on their own then.
Then you can find new ways to screw up your stave.lol
Like tillering
Bjrogg
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Zugul, that’s funny, that’s exactly the problem I’m having. :BB This is what my mind is seeing. It’s not working out that way though. I think also I’ve watched to many bow building videos. You know how it goes, they start with a nice big stave and 15 minutes later their taking practice shots with a new bow..
I’ve always had to learn the hard way. I just hope I can speed that up also..
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Nothing beats hands on trial and error learning when it comes to bow making. Anything really. I’ve broken many many bows experimenting and testing limits of wood to so don’t look at a “failure” as a failure but instead chalk it up to experience in the bow bank.
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Superdav95, You are so correct. i had to learn to walk away from a bow due to ruining other bows. I keep most of my failures to use as Lesson Learned. When I take a break from a bow I will look at the failures and remember what I did to make it fail.
So far I have made 3 working bows in about 10 attempts.
Started with boards and moved on to hard maple tree staves from a tree that I cut down. Staves are definitely a lot harder to make bows from than boards.
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I’ve got 2 or 3 bows that are in progress, all hickory staves. I did things wrong with them in my rush to get a bow.. I didn’t get the moisture content down like I should have. Have 2 my wife and I have been shooting that I got dried out and by heat treating. There not great but shooting okay. I’m agreement with Dave and everyone else that you definitely learn by doing and making your mistakes. That’s the main reason I’m trying to chase ring on these pieces of Osage that are pretty much junk stuff that’s leftover from my other staves I have from my Osage hall. Now that I’ve learned a little bit about making a bow I’ll probably try another hickory bow. I have a really nice hickory stave that’s seasoned and a prime piece. I might screw it up in the tillering process but I’m going to take my time and try not to do anything to stupid with it, if I can help myself. I’m waiting on some cabinet scrapers before I start trying any more ring chasing on the Osage stuff I’ve got left. I’m also thinking about getting back out and getting some more Osage cut and processed and stashed away for the future while I have a chance before winter comes.
Another question. How long once processed will a stave last and still make a good bow?
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I’ve got 2 or 3 bows that are in progress, all hickory staves. I did things wrong with them in my rush to get a bow.. I didn’t get the moisture content down like I should have. Have 2 my wife and I have been shooting that I got dried out and by heat treating. There not great but shooting okay. I’m agreement with Dave and everyone else that you definitely learn by doing and making your mistakes. That’s the main reason I’m trying to chase ring on these pieces of Osage that are pretty much junk stuff that’s leftover from my other staves I have from my Osage hall. Now that I’ve learned a little bit about making a bow I’ll probably try another hickory bow. I have a really nice hickory stave that’s seasoned and a prime piece. I might screw it up in the tillering process but I’m going to take my time and try not to do anything to stupid with it, if I can help myself. I’m waiting on some cabinet scrapers before I start trying any more ring chasing on the Osage stuff I’ve got left. I’m also thinking about getting back out and getting some more Osage cut and processed and stashed away for the future while I have a chance before winter comes.
Another question. How long once processed will a stave last and still make a good bow?
Many many many years. It’s very rot resistant and will last a long time. It’ll get darker in Color but still good. It’s up there with red cedar for rot resistance. Just gotta watch for the boarer worms getting there way in under the bark. But you would have inspected them well before putting them up for seasoning. Make sure you don’t leave bark in too long and don’t introduce other potential wood with boarers and should be good. So short answer. Many years.
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Remember those YouTube videos may only show you from start to finish in 15 minutes, but the actual time spent building the bows is a hell of a lot longer. Patience is your best friend.
Staves properly sealed and carefully stored should out live you and still be good.