After tillering, you are left with several things to finish up to make
a bow look nice.
The tips are one area.
And then the handle typically needs work.
And of course all those tool marks need to be removed.
An assortment of files start us off. A second cut smooths all the rasp marks down and then mill bastards really get it smooth and remove all the little tool marks. The chainsaw file recuts our string grooves. I start with 120 grit sandpaper then and work through 180 nd then 240 grit. I usually really polish it up with some steel wool. Of course all these processes lead to lots of dust so wear your respirator. I used to be "tough" and ended up with sinusitis for a couple weeks after I finished a bow :-) Guess I'm not so tough anymore - hehehe.
I usually mark the nock ends for an approximate shape to rasp to. Then rasp it down and then remove the corners and round it all down real nice. You also want to narrow your tips to remove as much mass as possible. I try to get to 3/8" or so.
You lose you nock grooves so you will have to redo those. Getting it down to a nice graceful tip is the idea. The above pictre is the lower tip and the space between the grooves and the very tip doesn't have to be very long at all. This is a bow for someone else so I left it longer than my personal bows. I leave almost nothing past the grooves on my bows because I push/pull to string the bow. If a stringer is used, you need a bit more.
This is a blurry pic of the upper tip.
After a little bit of work, we've got her all shaped up and smooth and ready for the stains or syes.
I'm using some alcohol based dyes for this one.
I'll start with yellow and then lay down the red and then some gray and finish up with a brown. I like to layer the colors. It always seems to build up a finish better than going with just one color.
Here's the back after the yellow. IT doesn't do much for the yellow osage but it sure makes the bamboo look nice.
Halfway done with the red. It really brings out the grain of the osage belly.
The gray adds a little darker hues to the grain. We've got a nice brown color now.
Here's the final look after the brown. A relly pretty brown with some hints of red and even some yellow. The gray had a blue hue to it that stuck in parts of the 'boo and the grain of the osage. Really nice deep color. I like it.
All that is left for this bow is a bit of lettering and some spray poly and of course a handle wrap.