Bow #2 Continues

Here's my jig in action. This is the glue up of two Hickory backing strips on what's gonna be bow #3.  You can't really tell but what's going on here is actually quite orderly. 

Below is a close-up of the jig. What you see here is a trough 1.25 inches wide in which the Ipe bow belly fits snugly. Those bisquits there (I subsituted plywood strips in place of these bisquits since these were pretty flimsy) are spaced exactly 1.5 inches apart. That means that the two butted up Hickory backing strips will be squeezed in place, exactly centered on the belly. The belly actually is taller than the top of the trough so the strips hang out in thin air over the edge of the belly. The problem with my first jig (this is my third attempt at making a jig) was that there was nothing to keep the belly centered under the stips. We tried, as we frantically were gluing things up, to keep the belly centered and the strips over-hanging equally. We didn't succeed. Consequently, bow #2 has backing strips that aren't centered very well on one of the limbs.

Now this design solves the centering problem. One thing you have to make sure of is to not glue the bow to the jig, what with all the excess glue all over the place. We addressed that with painter's masking paper.

This is a bow #2 at 30# and 5 inches of string draw. I believe I see that the second half of the right limb is a bit stiffer than the corresponding area on the left. What do you think? 

At this point, nothing has been taken off the belly. Note the leather booties at the ends of each string.