Marc way is slow but I think it's the best way.
I did a Ash stave and it took 2 hours to do 1 limb, really nice deep heat treat.

The fire way you can't see under there, not worth the time to me.

Quote from: Pat B on June 08, 2023, 11:30:13 AM
Red oak from a tree isn't the same as red oak from Lowe's or Home Depot. To me it seemed a lot stronger and more resilient.

I think it's the diff between air dried and kiln dried 🤔

...plus, you don't know how the log was handled from the stump to the store shelf. Wood for building bows is generally handled gingerly to protect the integrity needed for building bows. Lumber for furniture and construction isn't handled so gingerly.

Got myself a new photo Background.
And played around a bit with indirect flashlight.

Quote from: B-JS on June 10, 2023, 08:53:26 AM
Got myself a new photo Background.
And played around a bit with indirect flashlight.

It's pretty dark.... Kinda takes away from your riser IMO. It would probably work better on a light colored bow like the limbs in the second photo, but i think you would be better with a lighter color.

.02 cents

A light blue works pretty good

Brain Tanned a squirrel hide.  Breaking it tonight.  Might use it for a handle wrap.

[attachment=1][attachment=2][attachment=3]

Of course i had to eat the little bugger
[attachment=4][attachment=5]

Did you use the skwerls brain 🧠?

Yes.

Will you explain the tanning process? Food looks good.

I've never done this before so I should not be the one to instruct.  Like most things nowadays, I went to YouTube   These two vids are closest to what I did.  I have always thought I wanted to do a deer hide.  Even got a DVD and book several years ago but never followed through.  I wanted to practice on something smaller before trying it this fall.  Like most things primitive, it's simple but not easy.  I have more pics but they get a bit more gory.  Don't want to be demonetized here on TG

Basic steps:

1. Shoot squirrel
2. Skin squirrel
3. Flesh hide
4. Get the membrane off as much as possible
5. Get brains out of squirrels' skull, hammer and wire cutters made it easy to pop the top, so to speak
6. Mix brains and Borax
7. Rub paste onto skin for a couple hours
8. Scrape hair off.  This one slipped pretty easy after the braining. I did not have to buck it which would be required for deer.
9. I stretched on a frame but if you case skinned, you could use a hide stretcher.
10. Let it dry.
11. Break it.
12. Smoke it

I still have to do 11. and 12.

https://youtu.be/jqO-YML5RhA

https://youtu.be/Ruiwh_xvAYA

Okay, thank you.

My back has been feeling a bit better.... Got a bit of shop time in.
Walnut riser/ figured maple i beam
Bamboo limbs / curly walnut veneers
My first T/D in progress .
Tried 3 times to turn picture

I recently built 3 curves and complete turquious bow and a set of limbs for another. The turquious one is 61 in. 43 @ 28 and the other limbs are 43 also shooting for 40. Switching from BP glass to Gordons.Anyhow hope somebody is not mad ..

Been a busy spring and early summer. So I buckled down and got my adjustable riser finished finally. Still learning the nuances of milling aluminum and made some mistakes on the handle section as it was supposed to be a riser I could shoot. So I squared it off to put on a draw board.

Hopefully this will save some time by being able to better match riser geometry to limb design.

Wow! I'll bet that dove tail joint was fun to mill....That's quite a contraption you built there. Can I ask why you went to all the trouble to build the adjustable grip depth feature?

I'll bet you had a pretty good pile of aluminum shavings after that project....

Not just today but I've been tillering the boo backed osage glue-up James Parked gave me at the Classic. The tillering is done and I have 4 coats of Tru-Oil on her. Should be done in a few days(if it would quit raining) and I'll post more pics then.

bottom bow in this pic

Quote from: Kirkll on June 26, 2023, 08:55:41 AM
Wow! I'll bet that dove tail joint was fun to mill....That's quite a contraption you built there. Can I ask why you went to all the trouble to build the adjustable grip depth feature?

I'll bet you had a pretty good pile of aluminum shavings after that project....

It's a contraption for sure. My thoughts on the movable grip was to actually shoot with this riser and play with different deflex geometry in the riser. But, I messed up several times and it's just a draw board grip now. Also, I simply wanted to learn how to mill as this machine is new to me and I've never done anything on a mill before.

Yes, there was quite a bit of chips left over!   
I did cut down on some of that by cutting out what I could on a table saw first and drilling the perimeter of bigger chunks out of the way first.

For now, I've got the shop cleaned up and the wife is happy it is over for now. My shop is the 3rd bay of the garage that I walled off and inevitably, myself and the dog have been tracking aluminum shavings and bits into the house for a while now.

 

Yup.... Those aluminum shavings got tracked into the house from my shop 30 yards from the house, and I heard about it too.... Sticky little buggers...

I guess that makes sense if you were looking to actually shoot with the adjustable riser.

I just use mine for adjusting riser lengths and limb pad angles and measured the preloads with an in line scale. Once I got the limbs to optimum pre load using string length and limb pad angle, I'd mount the limbs on a riser block and measure back form the string to the deepest part of the grip to get a 7" brace height.

I've never tried to actually shoot the bow on mine. It's for prototyping limb geometry only.

Learning to mill Aluminum is a mess... rpm levels and feed rates change with every set up, and learning how much material to take in one pass is a learning curve too.
Quite honestly.... I  haven't done enough of it to become even remotely confident, and just as soon avoid it in the future... it's a bloody mess!   

We had a member here who passed from cancer a few years ago.  Lived down in NM.  He constructed an adjustable riser that he was able to shoot with.  Wish I could remember his name so as to look up his old posts on it.

Roy, do you remember his name?