Building the Vine Maple Bow - Finished

[Blacktail]

this was supposed to be an old pacific north west secret...and now the cat is out of the bag...LOL...THIS GREAT..i cant wait for the tillering on this..it will be fun...i have to say gordon..when it comes to vine maple you stand right with john strunk...and most people look at vm as a rookie wood..but it is far than that...john

[Bryce]

Woot woot nice gord-o! Glad you doing this! I planned on finishing my fm build along but sadly I've moved about 3 times and I can't find the drive with my build pictures. So I just finished the bow:/
Can't wait too see what you have in store for this pimply piece of wood:)

[simson]

....


Next I make a mark at the end and at the highest point of the crown and then another mark 1/2 inch to each side of the first mark. This will be the roughed out tip. At this point in the build I keep the tips quite wide.



....

First, thank you for doing this buildalong. I'm watching with interest!
Second, please explain why you chose the highest crown of the stave. I do not care about the highest point, I'm searching for the running through grain. Will say I look for a not running out grain only on one limb side, I aim for symmetry. Hope my words make sense ...

[Gordon]

Simson,

The vine maple that I typically harvest around these parts is of a smallish diameter and thus has a high crown. I like the center of mass to be centered along the limb to the extent possible to prevent the limbs from twisting.

[Pappy]

Very nice build along ,love watching them come along. Thanks Gordon. On the subject of crown, I haven't done VM but on most smaller Diameter stuff I have dealt with the crown will usually follow the grain anyway so I try and do about the same if the stave will let me. Looking nice so far.
 Pappy

[snag]

I wonder how VM reacts to heat straightening....? dry or wet? patience...

[Gordon]

Pappy, with vine maple anyway the crown almost always follows the natural grain of the wood. Except perhaps at knots which I work around.

David, vine maple responds well to both dry and wet heat - I use them both.

[Sockrablur]

Love all the pictures, thank you for doing such a great build. Your shop is awesome. I could simply sit, drink coffee and stare around me
Eagerly following, Jim

[Green]

I'm early on in my self bow endeavors.  Thanks for this build along......nice to see the work of masters on unfamiliar woods. 

[Gordon]

Before outlining the limb thickness taper I mark the location of the handle and fades. I'm making the fades two inches out from each end of the handle.



Using a tool I made for this purpose, I make a mark at the beginning of the fade that indicates of thickness of 7/8" from the back of the bow. This mark is the start of the limb thickness taper.





I then make another mark about 3/8" in from the previous mark. This mark indicates the depth of the taper at the limb tip. I then make a third mark half-way between the inner and outer marks. This last mark indicates the depth of the taper at mid-limb.

[Gordon]

Using my hand and fingers as a gauge I measure the mid-limb thickness and make a mark the thickness at mid-limb.





I repeat the previous steps at the limb tip.





With the thickness now marked at the fades, mid-limb, and the tip I use my hand as a guide to draw the thickness taper along the length of the limb. As I draw I slowly contract my hand to create a taper while following the back of the bow. If I do it right the taper line should line up with the thickness marks I made in the previous steps.





I repeat this process for both sides on each limb.

[Gordon]

I create the thickness taper by removing wood with a hatchet.  I use the thickness taper lines on each side of the limb as my guide.



When I'm done with the initial hatchet work I have a beveled belly along the length of the limb. I use a hatchet and/or rasp to remove the bevel.







I repeat the process for the other limb and I am done roughing out the limb thickness taper.

[Gordon]

I'm going to reduce the limb width a bit so using a piece of leather as my gauge, I mark the limb width at 1 3/4".  I then draw an outline of the handle and rough it out the handle using a hatchet.







I use a farrier rasp to reduce the limbs to the marked width. If there are any knots near the edge, I work around them
 




I reduce the tips to about 5/8" inch.





And here is the limb after the width has been reduced.

[Gordon]

And finally I clean up the belly with a spoke shave and I now have a fully roughed out bow.





Next up - preparing the bow for tillering.

[Gordon]

Now that I have the bow roughed out I am going to work on perfecting the thickness taper. If you get the taper just right early on it makes tillering the bow that much easier. I start by running the limb between my fingers feeling for low and high spots. The human hand is an incredibly sensitive instrument and  is capable of detecting minute variations in thickness. But it takes practice to develop the feel and at first it will seem like you are not able to do it any better with your fingers than just judging the thickness with your eyes. But stick with it and over time you will be amazed at how well you can judge the taper of a limb by just feeling it.



I mark any high spots with a solid pencil and low spots with an "X". The idea is to perfect the thickness taper first and then remove wood evenly from the limbs after that.



A common problem with vine maple is swirly grain. If you try to hog wood off using a cutting tool like a spoke shave or draw knife, the tool will catch on the grain swirls and pull out chunks. I found that the best tool for hogging wood off vine maple is a micro-plane.