This is the third video in a tillering series
and I'm grateful you clicked on this video.
I've made a lot of bows.
I'm just trying to tell you what I've learned
in the process of making 100 bows.
That way you don't break the bow that I broke.
With that being said,
all these videos used to be for paid members only,
but right now it's completely free for all of you guys.
I wanted to just go ahead and give all content away.
And if you appreciate that and would like to support,
you can go to shadowproofarchery.com
to get some specialized tools for making bows,
like tillering strings, tillering gizmos,
or you can just get your basic archery gear
like quivers, bow strings, tabs, and the list goes on.
So thank you so much for your support.
Go make the best bow you can.
I'll see you in the course.
All right, power tools.
Okay, so the big thing with power tools
is they can be a massive help,
but at the same time,
they're the quickest way to turn your bow
into firewood, so to speak.
So you wanna be careful with power tools.
And I'm gonna run over real quick
which power tools I like to use the most.
If you have these, it can be very helpful,
very beneficial in the right time,
but you also wanna be very careful.
Here's the dichotomy, so to speak,
is the power tools can remove wood quicker
so it can speed up the process,
but the more wood you're removing
means the faster you can break a bow.
So there's a few things to look out for with power tools,
as well as a few tools that help out
a lot more than others.
So let's jump into it.
Starting at the top, my favorite power tool
that I use the most, and if you only had one,
I would get a belt sander.
And you can have a real small 24-inch belt sander.
A belt sander is totally fine, and it works really good.
You can do a ton on that, from flattening bamboo
to shaping the handles to removing wood off the sides
and removing wood off the belly if needed,
if there's a lot there.
So a belt sander is so, so versatile, so to speak.
It has enough control that you can kind of
take your time with it, but it's still aggressive enough
that you feel like you're actually doing something.
The second tool I would choose is a spindle sander,
because this is so handy to get inside the handle
so that it's real comfortable to shoot.
To get that handle to shape the way you want it
around your hand, a spindle sander is nearly invaluable.
Now, to replace that, you can use that rasp
with that curved edge and handwork it in,
and you can do everything there,
but it is quicker on a spindle sander.
You can change grits on a spindle sander,
so you can go from a really low grit
up to a high grit to make it real smooth.
A spindle sander really does help out a lot
around the handle if you want to use one.
The third tool I would choose for my power tool collection
would be a belt, wrong, a bandsaw, I'm thinking a bandsaw.
The third thing I would choose for bow making is a bandsaw,
just primarily because you can rip laminations
so that you can glue pieces of wood together,
and you can cut down the limb width really quickly on that.
You can use it to cut out an arrow shelf.
It's just beneficial for cutting.
The thing with bows, though,
is you don't have to do hardly any cutting on a bow,
and that's why just a woodworking saw,
or even that's why I showed you the hacksaw blade earlier,
because you can do it all with that,
and that's one of the cool things
is it's more of a art of removing wood slowly
and more of a finesse than it is grinding away
or cutting a ton of wood.
The cutting is very minimal with bow making.
The fourth tool I would choose is a orbital sander.
Just for final sanding, it just speeds up the process,
and if you have something like 40 grit sandpaper,
you can actually tiller with an orbital sander
pretty safely, and I've done that before.
I personally prefer a scraper over it
because I can remove wood just as controlled
and quicker if I need to with my practice on it,
and also just to get in the handle
and to smooth everything out with 220 grit sandpaper
as you're finishing up the bow can be really handy.
Those are the four power tools I use
way more than anything else.
A quick note on saws is to know
the cutting direction of the blade.
For example, a circular saw is spinning
towards you generally, or a skill saw,
and that's gonna be cutting up,
and if you're cutting up when you're cutting down
limbs or something, what that's gonna do
is possibly lift up fibers on the bow backing
and you don't wanna do that.
The same thing's gonna happen with a jigsaw.
The blade's going up and down,
so it's gonna cut down and up normally with a jigsaw.
Therefore, you probably don't wanna use that
so that it doesn't lift up a fiber.
You can, if you want to, put some painter's tape down
and then use the jigsaw, and that sometimes can help,
but if you can, I like to just stay away from it.
The other thing you wanna watch out for would be a sawzall
or a scroll saw, anything where the blade's
gonna pull fibers up.
So even with a handsaw, you wanna push away
and then pull it up, and then push away.
Cut on the way down.
You wanna cut on the way down rather than on the way up,
and that'll be better and help you from lifting up fibers
on the back of the bow.
I mean, a lot of us already have a lot of these power tools,
and so those are the ones I would like to use the most
or the ones I use the most.
I hope that's helpful, but remember,
if you're gaining speed of wood removal,
you're sacrificing control.
So that's an okay thing.
You just wanna be careful at that time
to make sure you don't make any mistakes
that would ruin the bow.
