Hickory Backed Mulberry Buildalong

9/25/06 - Tiller done Finally! It's still not *perfect*, but it's good enough to move on to the next stage. What is a static recuve called when the string never leaves the curves? Maybe I put a little too much into it ;) It's drawn to 27" in this pic.

10/1/06 - Sinew Update long overdue. On the first of the month I put the second layer of sinew down. On the 3rd I put the final layer. Going to wait probably 3 weeks at least. I'm impatient and the air is so humid here (consistantly 80+ RH), so I put the hot box in a small room with my neighbor's dehumidifier on loan. Prepped for second layer. I'm not going to go into detail, as there are people waaay more qualified to give advice on sinew backing. The only thing I do that some people do not is soak the sinew in acetone and wring it around in paper towl. When I pounded the sinew it left a pretty good grease stain on the mallet and I wanted to make sure it was oil-free. The layer before the last layer.. it was getting pretty lumpy so I decided to let this dry and then file it to a smooth crown. Then I put the last layer over top of that.

10/10/06 - Problem? Hmmm... sinew causing checking? This is just past the bottom fade and right at the power lam fade. I guess I'll fill with thin warmed super glue and hope for the best.

10/13/06 - 2 week mark This weekend will be 2 weeks. I'm not going to stress the limbs out much, just clean up the sides and work with tip alignment. I can see already that the sinew is pulling one of the tips out to the side. Going to be wrestling with this to the end I bet. Ahhh, reflex is back ;) I hope it doesn't get much more, this is going to be hard enough. Definately going to make the statics shorter later. For now I'm leaving them long so that when (if) I get them pulling straight, they will definately be straight when shortened.

10/16/06 - Phase 2 tillering done Ok, well I said I wasn't going to stress out the limbs yet, I lied. Impatience always gets me. Braced. Still having trouble with the right 1/3, but it's better than it was. Pulled to 28. I'm looking at 36# right now. Sinew is ticking and creaking, but only cracked in one place across midlimb. Shape just after being unstrung from measuring the F/D curve. The curve is uneventful. Just a little stacking at the end. 6" 0.0# 8" 5.0# 10" 8.0# 12" 11.5# 14" 14.0# 16" 17.0# 18" 20.0# 20" 23.0# 22" 26.0# 24" 29.0# 26" 32.0# 28" 36.0#

11/10/06 - Horn arrived Back at it. School's been rough and I've not had an evening off in the past 2 weeks. I priced out what a lam of osage would cost and a gemsbok horn off ebay was the same. Since my labor costs me nothing, I went for horn ;) Sanding the ridges Turned out cutting this wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I used a coping saw. Cleaned up the edges on the belt sander. Now I have to figure out a method of flattening this without a vice.

11/11/06 - Horn sanded Horn flattening went well. I don't have a vice so I had to make do. I wanted the whole horn soft for flattening the thickest parts, so I put them in the oven at 400. Then I squashed all but the large end, since that's easy to do with a heat gun. Here's how I flattened it. Those are railroad tie plates. They actually started out almost 1/4" thick. I thinned them to 1/8". I messed up the one on the left a little and it won't go all the way across the limb in one spot.

11/12/06 - Horn glued up I finished shaping and gluing up the horn today. While flattening I made one of the strips too narrow and it didn't go all the way across the limb, so I had to make the other match. I'm thinking of trapping the limbs toward the belly to make up for it. Not sure yet though. I hit the fades with the heat gun to make things easier and relieve the pressure Dry run. You can see the slivers of wood on the left and right.