Build along, super glue and leather bow handle

Randy Morin · March 27, 2005, 08:38:00 AM

Very Cool. Thanks for the tutorial.

Ray · March 27, 2005, 08:51:00 AM

Thanks for taking the time to show this,came out beautiful!

G · March 27, 2005, 10:50:00 AM

Man that is great, really like the look and the function. Thanks! Now I will prolly spend this afternoon super gluing myself onto a leather an wood nightmare.

Dave Bulla · March 27, 2005, 09:53:00 PM

G,

Got your pm on your attempt. How did the acetone work out? Can ya post a pic?

Dano · March 28, 2005, 08:54:00 AM

Thanks Dave, nice job, gotta try that soon.

Madpigslayer · March 28, 2005, 11:27:00 AM

cool Dave. I will try it on Linc's bow. you know, when I start working on bows again.

Dave Bulla · March 28, 2005, 09:47:00 PM

Ok, now it's time to take care of an arrow shelf or in this case, two of them. I'm gonna make this bow with two shelves so it can be shot left or right handed.

This first shot is a small piece of leather that I cut to wrap 3/4 of the way around the handle so the shelves are connected on the belly side. No particular reason for it other than I think it will look nice when it's done. Notice the curved cuts on the top and bottom. The top will actually make a straight line around the bow when it's installed and the bottom will be curved. Go figure...

Here it's installed and I also trimmed the edge closest to the back overlay ust because it looked like it needed it after it was glued on.

Here's the other side. I've started to skive the edges and it's ready for some glue and then second and third layers. Since I've shown that before, I'll skip ahead a bit for the next pic.

Scooby · March 28, 2005, 10:10:00 PM

Uh dave that leather looks like the leather on my boots that I left there last time.........

No just kidding I like the laminated look of the several layers of leather I didn't realize that was how you did it. I guess I better pay better attention next time.

I also like the contrast of the dark leather and the sapwood SHARP!!!!

Scott

Dave Bulla · March 28, 2005, 10:17:00 PM

Here's with three total layers glued on, skived to rough shape and ready for some glue saturation.

Same stage but soaked good with glue.

Here is a side view of it all sanded and polished up to a nice shine.

And lastly a back view showing both shelves. Sure don't look like leather does it?

horseapple · March 28, 2005, 10:39:00 PM

Nice Bulla, now all you need is a wrapped handle to cover it, clockwised wrapped that is

nick_the_tinkerer · March 29, 2005, 01:02:00 AM

WOW Nicely done....

Thanks for the knowledge....

Nick

Mark Baker · March 29, 2005, 01:35:00 AM

I'm impressed Dave! Beautiful.

Mark Baker · March 29, 2005, 01:37:00 AM

I'm impressed Dave! Beautiful.

Tom Leemans · March 29, 2005, 08:34:00 AM

I'm guessing your skin on your fingers is kinda like plastic about now.

trashwood · March 29, 2005, 08:44:00 AM

Really nice touch. I like the double shelf alot.

rusty

Dave Bulla · March 29, 2005, 10:27:00 AM

Thanks for the compliments guys. I've had a lot of people at mojam ask me how to do this but I never had a digital camera to do a build along until recently. I sure wish I had the talent to make a bow bend as pretty and shoot as nice as most of you can instead of just to make them look pretty... Looks don't put critters on the table but I'm working on learning to tiller so maybe someday I'll be able to put the two together.

Funny, but I just get more enjoyment from fine scraping, sanding and polishing than I do from the bulk work of wood removal and tillering. I guess it's just more my speed. If I ever get a tiller tree rigged up I'll have to work on that part more and teach myself to "see" good tiller and then learn how to get from crappy tiller TO good tiller. Guess I gotta build bows more often than I usually do. I've only built three that are still together plus one that broke and a hatchet bow that is in danger of it so I don't know much about it yet. Two of the three were intentional kids bows and the third was for my wife so it was barely more than a kids bow. The one that broke was for myself and I broke it because I didn't listen to Rusty's advice....

JC · March 29, 2005, 10:35:00 AM

Dave, show the handle on the bow I shot at TSII, the one that was wrapped lace. Very cool effect I had never seen before.

the Ferret · March 29, 2005, 03:57:00 PM

Dave how do you keep from gluing yourself to everything? If I walk past my CA glue bottle I'm stuck to something and have to rasp it off.

That is outstandingly beautiful work!

olFatGuy KenWood · March 29, 2005, 07:38:00 PM

That is SWEET. I have to try this out on one of my projects. Thanks Dave for sharing.

KenWood

G · March 29, 2005, 09:02:00 PM

Sorry, I'm unable to do pics. I was pleased with the look that came out by clamping with backed, medium density foam around a convex wood test piece. Use a release sheet[plastic film] between rubber and leather. The acetone cut ca glue really saturated the leather. I wasn't sure the glue would dry but it did, hard as a brick.
Thanks again, George Robbins