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I went out yesterday to hang two more bee swarm traps. I have access to about 800 acres of timber and river bottom land that is owned by the company I retired from. I did some high water travel and turned around at one point. I knew the water was too deep. This is three days after the rain we had and the water in these pictures is still moving at a pretty good clip.
My turn around point. I could see water over the road at least 3/4 mile ahead and know there are two spots that are wallered out. County grader doesn’t maintain much down here and this water is moving toward me.
Looking back where I came from. The water crosses back across the road about 1/4 mile away and runs off into an old creek drainage. It is deep at that corner but is passable.
The wood ducks love this flooded timber.
I haven’t quit, just busy.
I had planned on being in south Arizona this week but my plans were changed. I would have taken a bow but this was not an archery event. It is a border watch operation in the cartel land near the border.
But, here I am.
I put the limbs on and set the bow in my tiller tree. First picture is where the bow will be around brace height. Second is about where it will be at my draw length around 26″ The tiller is close enough that I’m not going to mess with it for now.
Now I started working on the riser shape. Lots of sanding done and lots more to do but I’m liking the shape of it.
I have been looking at a lot of riser shapes trying to decide what I want to do with my riser and finally decided to go with this layout.
Lots more sanding to do…..
I started working on tip #2 today. I can get into making the first tip pretty easy but I beat myself up on the second one trying to get them to match.
#2 on the right. They kind of look alike but I’m not done sanding on it yet.
No wind here finally but it’s raining and predicted to keep it up through Saturday. Caught a break today so I took a couple of swarm traps out and hung them. I’ll check them in 3-4 weeks.
Here’s the first coat of finish on the Spalted Elm. Rainy weather today so I may hold off on any wood work today.
Just about forgot this picture. It’s not cheap but it sure does a great job making useless wood into beautiful projects. The best thing is you can clean up with soap and water.
I took care of some other stuff this morning and then spent about two hours in the wood shop. I started work on the limb tips. The fiberglass and antler really wear out the little sanding sleeves on my Dremel tool so I do most of the work with a rasp and then smooth out the rasp marks with the Dremel.
I will put thin super glue on the antler to smooth it out and help strengthen it then do some more finish sanding.
Spalted Hackberry. The wood is so soft you can dig it out with a thumbnail.
After a trip through the vacuum chamber and baked @ 200* for two hours. Ready for the lathe.
Deer grunt calls. And you can add dye to the resin. I make the bands myself. They cost around $3-$4 each but these are made from 1.25″ sink drain.
Spalting is the first step in wood decay and the wood starts getting soft. The Cactus Juice stabilizes (hardens) the wood where it won’t fly apart in a lathe.
This is my source for the Elm. My friend had a guy cut down her dead Elm tree. He cleared everything but left the trunk and never came back to finish it. I cut it up so I could get some of the wood for projects.
While digging out the composted material in the middle I came across some turtle eggs.
I thought they were turtle eggs. I found eleven unhatched eggs in one clutch and 23 hatched shells in another. There are a lot of rat snakes in this part of Kansas.
This is before stabilizing. The spalting is prominent through these pieces.
The stabilized wood is pretty hard on lathe tooling. This one is coated with an oil finish called Feed & Wax.
My finished project. I made five of these lighthouses for Christmas presents. The crystal is 1.25″ in diameter.
This morning I did a little work on my knife handles. I epoxied them onto the blade last night and hit the sander this morning. Still need to do some finish sanding on them.
These are Spalted Elm that I stabilized with Cactus Juice resin.
Yesterday I did some initial sanding on the limb butts and worked on the riser.
It was a very nice day so I decided to sit outside at my picnic table to work on the riser with my #49 Nicholson rasp. I was sitting about two feet from my bee feeders and every once in a while one or two would hover over the riser to see what was going on. Bees are curious critters.
I’ve never worked with Jatoba wood before.
Robin, have you ever tried catching bees with a swarm trap? I started putting some together today and will hang them out next week.
These are fiber plant buckets. I coated the outside with a water sealant and then plugged all but one hole in the bottom of each set. This will leave an entrance hole for the bees. I’ll hang a used hive frame inside, put the two bucket halves together with screws and seal the top of the seam. I’ll drill a small hole in the back end for ventilation.
The used hive frames will give off the wax and propolis odor which will help attract bees to it.
It now looks kind of like a bow.
I still need to cut out the sight window and sand the contours of the riser. Cut the string nocks and shape the tips. Sand down the edges of the limbs and work on the wedge contours. Start checking and working on the tiller. And a whole lot of finish sanding before applying a finish to it.
And then I can clean up my mess and put the tools up for a while.
