Yes it is fun to bless someone with a bow, these friends actually pay for materials and I donate my time. It actually has become a lot more of an investment of my time and help than I originally intented. You can’t just supply a bow…people need help with arrow set up and shooting glove, some shooting instruction…you know the drill. I did not consider all that it would involve. Three of these bows are actually for friends and I am donating one to the local Spring Valley 4H and Minarets High School FFA Fundraiser this Saturday night. This event is attended by a host of hunters many of which are compound hunters…I am hoping to convert a few!

Steve – These bows have been a project for the last couple months. Making bows is still a pretty slow process for me – it is actually a stress relief from my job.

I don’t want to paint a picture of myself that is over inflated. I do have an agenda in all this. I really love building bows and someday 10 years from now or so I want to be an expert and known for building a quality bow. I don’t really have any big plans for any business of bow building. I just want to be able to craft a beautiful bow that really shoots well. My friends that are willing to cover material cost just make it affordable for me to learn and improve my skill. So it is a win win for me…

Thanks Troy – I am really enjoying the woods that you provided. The Black Locust with the Bamboo makes for a very nice core combination. I am working on my first black glass bow right now. I am going to dress it up with some Paduk ovelays. I also have figured out how to get my overlays to feather nicely into the glass. Working on those little details and making improvements is very rewarding.

Steve Graf wrote: [quote=Cameron]…I also have figured out how to get my overlays to feather nicely into the glass…

Don’t be shy now, do tell… 😀

This is probably something everyone else already knows but in my process I was creating extra work. I was placing a relativly thin piece of wood down as a riser overlay and wrapping with plastic wrap then placing a pressure board on top extending past the ends of the overlay and clamping. Then working at cleaning up the mess of epoxy that had oozed out…I had a tough time getting the epoxy – glass and wood to all become one smooth surface.

So now I get my overlay wood VERY thin – I lay plastic wrap over the top but do not wrap the riser. I put a pressure board on top of the wrap and begin a process of clamping and cleaning. I clamp down the overlay but wipe all excess epoxy off with an old piece of cotton t-shirt. My pressure board and wrap both stop short of covering the very ends of the overlay by about about a 1/4″ this allows me to wipe off all excess glue and leave a clean area with no impact from the plastic wrap.

When I remove the clamps and plastic – I now really only have to work at a wood and glass transition which takes very little time to blend smooth.

In my previous process I was simply creating a great deal of work which was not producing the clean look that I was wanting.