I needed to turn a small PVC bow into an even smaller piece for travel. Here is the simple way I converted it into a takedown bow.
First, make the bow as normal, flattening the limbs, adding recurves, etc. Tiller it as you normally would, but leave the handle section in the round.
Draw a straight line down the handle section longer than you want the handle to be (in my case, 4", so I made the line about 8"). Also draw where the ends of the handle should be.
Cut a section of PVC as long as you desire your handle to be (in my case, 4"), but one size larger. For example, my original PVC bow is 3/4"; my handle section is 1". Draw a line down the middle of the larger pipe, parallel to the edges.
Cut the handle of the bow as close to center as possible but on a slant of about 30-45 degrees. (I cut mine so the slant ran side to side rather than forward and back.)
Heat the now-cut tapered ends and, one at a time, push them into the larger handle section, up to your handle mark on the bow. The heated part of the bow will deform to the size of the round handle section. Use the straight lines to help you align everything and make sure the limbs don't go in crooked.
NOTE: I chose to heat the smaller pipe and push it into the larger pipe so that I could make sure they could come back out again. Heating the larger pipe and forcing onto the smaller pipe works, just so long as the smaller pipe handle section is still truly round (which mine weren't after flattening the limbs).
The tapered cut you made means that the more pressure is exerted on the bow limbs, the more the ends will push together in perfect alignment. If you wish, one end can be glued into the handle section for convenience.
Here are a couple of pictures that pretty much explain everything faster than I could in words. Good luck!
After working on my vine maple stave some more with the scraper technique I discussed in my previous post, I found something new yet again.
Previously I had described how the scraper ended up burnishing the wood under the bark in the process. As it turns out, part of the last inner bark removal (the cambium layer closest to the wood back) is in part due to the act of burnishing. In slowing down, I discovered that simply burnishing over this cambium layer seems to slightly compress the wood beneath, causing the cambium layer to come away from the wood. To verify that this is what is happening, I tried burnishing over the cambium with the round shaft of a screwdriver. Sure enough, the cambium could be seen to lift away from the wood and eventually to flake off.
However, my previous assessment of the sharpened and rolled scraper edge catching on just the cambium was not incorrect. Rather, it appears that the scraper technique works by using a combination of burnishing to lift the edges of the cambium and scraping to catch the lifted edge.
I'm working on a vine maple stave at present. It's the first time I've worked with this wood. I purchased it as a dried stave with the bark on, so removing the bark is the first task. Carson over at Echo Archery has a blog post about debarking staves using a dulled drawknife. I haven't tried it yet and have been using a scraper, and in the process I think I may have discovered something interesting.
Carson points out that using a scraper is time consuming and requires a lot of maintenance. Based on this experience, I'd have to disagree. The scraper I'm using was carefully prepared with a sharp edge carefully rolled -- but that was quite some time ago. So I would identify this one as being "somewhat dulled." I find it works quickly through the outer bark, but there is the risk of cutting through the first layers of wood as one proceeds through the inner bark. This is where I think I may have discovered something through trial and error.
I first quickly (and roughly) removed the outer bark by presenting the scraper at the same angle I would if I were scraping wood -- closer to 45 degrees to the surface of the wood so that the rolled edge of the scraper really digs in and removes bark aggressively. I continue this into the inner bark until the wood is just starting to peek through.
Here is the change: At this point, I started to present the scraper to the wood at close to a 90 degree angle, maybe 5-10 degrees less. By passing the scraper back and forth quickly over the inner bark and gradually canting the scraper closer to the wood, the rolled edge of the scraper just catches the softer inner bark while the dulled part on the edge/side of the scraper rides over the harder surface of the wood, burnishing it in the process without cutting into it.
This has worked surprisingly well, even in areas where I know there are pin knots. It's all about the angle at which the scraper is presented to the wood. The closer the scraper is to 90 degrees, the less opportunity the rolled sharpened edge has to catch on anything. Tilt it just enough and the rolled edge catches on the soft raised surfaces without cutting into the harder wood beneath.
Here's a quick (but unexciting) video showing the technique on the vine maple, in case you are curious about how it works. The outer bark has already been removed, so you're looking at the removal of just the inner bark. At first I start with a heavier cutting angle (you can hear the "rasping" sound as it is coming off), then I switch to having the scraper more perpendicular to the wood. Here you can hear the "squeaking" sound of the scraper riding over the harder wood while you see the last bits of inner bark come off. (Note the importance of paying attention to the sound.) I'm not using much pressure or having to turn my wrists, so aside from the back/forth movement, I'm not working very hard to expose the wood beneath. It's all about letting the tool do the job.
It's just a matter of finesse. In some cases I'm not looking at the bark removal so much as feeling it in the scraper and listening for the change in sound. (This is one argument for the power of using hand tools and working without the day to day din of music and television in the background.)
I don't know how well this would work on softer wood such as yew or cascara because there may not be enough hardness in the sapwood for the scraper to ride over, but I imagine that the technique might work for removing the springy early wood from the harder late wood on osage. Guess I'll have to try it out.
EDIT: See the next post for further thoughts and information.
