The Red Oak Bow Pt. 2

Alright, on to part 2 of the red oak bow. When we left our little bows they were rough cut, and had the risers glued on. Now we get down to the hand work. I use three files for this part of the construction. A small 4 way rasp, A mill file, and a huge hoggin' rasp. I work off of my homemade shaving horse which is a great tool to shape the limbs. I used to use a carpentry

vise, but the shaving horse is much better, not only is it quicker to move and clamp the bow, but its kind of nice to be able to sit down while I work. I start with the big rasp. If youll remember when I jigsawed off the angle off the limb I left a little extra wood up to my layout line. Nows the time to clean those lines up. I take the rasp, and slowly work along the limb, removing wood down to the line. Keep the rasp perpendicular to the limb, and work slowly. The 4 way rasp comes into play to remove small areas. When I have the limb rasped down to my line, I take a 60 grit sandpaper wrap it around a scrap block of wood, and straighten all the lines. I dont get too aggressive here as I dont want to remove too much wood beyond my layout line. Think of this step like feathering body work on a car. I smooth the angles on all 4 sides of the bow. Next its time to round over the belly of the bow. I work my way up the edges of the belly with the mill file. My goal here to just break the sharp edge with a slight bevel. When I get done with that I use the least aggressive side of the 4 way to round the edge over slightly. I do it this way because of the oaks tendency to splinter. using the least aggressive of the files moving towards the most removing a little material at a time. Next comes 60 grit sandpaper, followed by 150. I go up to end of the riser, but Im careful not to file into the riser. You can see how nicelythe limb is starting to take shape. At this point I only do the belly of the bow. In the next post youll see why. when the belly is rounded over and smoothed along both sides Im done with this round of work. Next time it'll be time to back these bows. I know this was a short post, and so likely youll think this is a short step. It is not, put aside an afternoon to do this. Its important to keep everything equal, and symmetrical. I want equal force and just about equal tension on each limb. This is achieved by taking my time , and making sure whatever I do to one limb I do to the other.