Day four of bow making involved an awful lot of sanding to remove all the tool marks from my bow and round out the edges. Then I raised the grain and added varnish.
I also served the string, which means taking a different type of thread from what I used to make the bow string and wrapping it around the place on the string where I pull the bow back. The serving helps protect your fingers and also allows the arrow to nock on the string, because otherwise the arrow would just slide up and down the string all loosey-goosey and that’s not very conducive to an accurate shot. I used a special jig that maintains an even amount of tension on the thread to serve the string.
Once the string was served and the varnish applied, I added a leather handle. First I cut the leather to size and then I used a leather punch to make holes along the sides for sewing.
Once the holes were punched, I used a two needle method to sew the handle on with an x stitch (pretty sure it’s not actually called that, but the description is apt).
Once the grip was added, by bow was essentially complete. Not sure what I’ll do for the last day of class…maybe I’ll make a new bow.
Thank you for reading.
It’s been so much fun vicariously building your bow. Will there soon be a bow making workshop in the house?
I think there’s a definite possibility of a bowyer’s workshop popping up in the near future.