More to come

I haven't been keeping things up-to-date here, and I plan on changing that shortly. Got a weekend of sub-par weather, so it looks like a good time to get things going again here.
Things to look forward to:

• Pictures of my 2nd bow
• Pictures of my 1st atlatl
• Pictures of my 1st and 2nd quivers

Check back shortly and I'll have some more stuff for you!

News

I haven't vanished entirely. I have been working on the wife's bow still. It is just difficult to work indoors while she is working on homework in the next room. I don't want to distract her from that.

Anyway, progress is going slow on that. However, I got my hands on some goose wings and did some plucking tonight:

I have no idea what I'm doing, but there has to be some good ones in there...

Size comparison of the array of feathers I took.

So, I didn't really know what was what while I was working on it, but I just tried to pluck anything that looked about the size I'd need for fletches, or larger. I mangled some, and others are probably too small, but I can use them for practice, I think. Also got a few bamboo stakes at Lowes for $0.98 each. I'll probably go back for more of those and buy them out at that price. Even if I get a few dogs, I'll be able to make use of them somehow.

Distractions

Slowly making progress on bow #2. Maple with hickory backing. Pyramid shaped limbs. Work and the holidays kept me busy from it. In the mean time, please enjoy my tiny chopstick bow. I enjoyed making this, it didn't take very long. I'll probably make another with a bit better splice, and use this one for tiny arrows when it breaks.

It's done!

A few pictures:

Close up of the wrap.

Upper limb "Through Difficulty"

Ben Cruachan - Look it up.

Ignore the goofy look on my face, I was asking the wife if she was ready...

The beauty of the bow, without the beast of, well, me.

Bow undrawn.

The backing didn't turn out as good as I had hoped, but it works. Bow has a fair amount of set, but it's final draw weight is 41 pounds at 28". Red oak, linen backing, finished with tung oil. Leather strikeplate/arrow rest, and a fishing line handle wrap. Now I get to make the next one. Maybe in the meantime I'll post a "lessons learned" or something like that.

Weapons Test

The bow has been fired. I shot 12 arrows with it, and only missed with 2. I think the spine on the arrows is a bit stiff for the bow, but I eventually was able to compensate and hit the damn target. Overall, happy with the performance, but we did experience some structural damage in the handle- See below:

The thick black line is the serving, not a crack. Thankfully.

So, right now I am trying to determine what to do to fix it. I may be able to get away with not having the thicker riser, and just adding a wrap or something there, but I am consulting some folks who know more about this stuff than I do to see what can be done.

Enough of the sadness and worry though: Here's a video of it shooting:

Finally! Some progress!

Lots of news-
Hurricane just barely brushed us, so lots of luck there. Its a shame that the same cannot be said of everyone in its path.

Bow is tillered! It is strung at full brace right now, with a string that actually has serving! Still some work to be done; I need to narrow up the handle, sand the whole thing down to a nicer finish, and then rub it down with some tung oil. I will be shooting an arrow off of it this weekend. Still not sure if I'll back it or not. We will worry about that later though. Here's some pictures:

Full Brace

Full Draw

Serving on the string- bit of glue drying on both ends. Serving jig made this much easier than anticipated.

So, there you have it- red oak, 42-43lbs at 28". I may be slightly south of 40 when all is said and done, but I'm pretty happy with it for now. Also got my Traditional Bowyers Bibles in the mail today- started reading the first, and it is full of good info, highly recommend.

Moving Slowly Forward

Things are still progressing, a little bit at a time. Originally I had no idea how long it would take me to build this thing, and the start of it went much quicker than I had thought. Tillering, obviously, is taking longer than I thought. Again, mostly because I only do it in short stints. I did a lot more this weekend, and have it looking quite good at 12" of draw. However, I ended up pulling a muscle in my back trying to restring it. Pulling on the bow, reaching for the string when suddenly  cat. She started attacking the stringer, so I went to swat at her and must have twisted wrong. So, that will slow me down a little. Like I need that! Anyway, more pictures to come.