This is a three-piece wood takedown bow.
Today's video is video number two on how to build this bow.
I also wrote a book about it
if you're interested in the step-by-step guide.
Additionally, Shatterproof Archery put together a kit
with all the exact materials,
including the hardware that you need to build the bow.
The description has all the info.
I hope you enjoy this video on how to glue up these limbs.
Now it's time to glue it up.
Here's how I do it.
First, the better these pieces match up,
the easier it's gonna go for you.
So I'll place all of these down together
and I'll line it up as good as I can
and add some spring clamps.
Now I can run this to the belt sander
and true up the edges.
I wanna add some reflex.
So this is my setup.
The blocks are 31 inches apart from the insides.
This right here is one inch
and these ones right here are two inches tall.
So that allows us to take our board
after the glue is on it
and we can reflex this down just like that.
And then we'll add our clamps.
So this was what would be called a dry run.
Everything's lined up.
Make sure everything looks good.
Now we just need to add the glue and do this again.
First thing is when you're setting up the form here,
you don't want these to move around
because when you push the bow on it, it can move it.
I'm putting the blocks at 31 inches apart
and then I'm going to screw them in
from the bottom so they can't move.
Now with our one inch block,
we want it to be right in the middle.
Now nothing's gonna move around on you
and the glue-up's gonna be much smoother.
I do like to clean my pieces with acetone.
Everything's cleaned up and ready to go.
I will do a sizing coat first again,
just an initial thin layer.
After a minute or so, the final coat.
I'm using Titebond III wood glue here.
Any yellow wood glue works great.
This one is supposed to be waterproof
so I guess that's a good thing.
But I finished my bows anyway
so I don't necessarily need waterproof glue.
Yes, you could use hide glue.
You could use EA-40.
You could use Unibond.
But wood glue is one of the best.
I like to air with too much glue and too many clamps.
All right, let's clamp it up.
First I'm just gonna lay it down, throw a clamp on.
Awesome, okay, so that's starting to set together.
Now we can go for the middle clamp.
I think this spring clamp will be good enough there.
There we go.
And then I like to clean some of the squeeze out
just to keep it clean.
If you go ahead and get a rag
and wipe the glue off before it hardens,
it's gonna be a lot less cleanup later.
I will add a little bit of a tighter clamp at the fade out
and any place that looks like there could be a gap.
The reason I'm using clamps rather than wrapping it
in some sort of elastic
is because wood glue needs air to cure.
If you use EA-40, you can wrap the entire piece
in some sort of elastic or bike tire like this
and it'll cure based on the chemical reaction
of the epoxy's mixing.
But if I were to wrap this in Saran Wrap or the bike tire,
this glue would never cure.
It really doesn't need to be over complicated.
There are hundreds of ways to glue something up.
You take the principle of, okay,
these pieces need to be flat
and they need to be pressurized.
How can we do that?
There's no right or wrong.
It's fun to be creative and use the methods that you have.
So let's do the other one, the exact same.
If we flip the script and say,
what could we do to guarantee that this would fail?
It gives us a frame of mind to figure out
what we need to solve for before we glue up.
Here's a few things to keep in mind
or to implement so that the chance of failure goes down.
Use your fingers.
I know I already mentioned this,
but really double check that this is very flat.
The mistake is that if there's dips in your material,
if they don't come together flat,
then it's really hard to get a good glue up.
And sometimes if you're not particular on the material prep,
when you push it together, there's gaps.
Just by holding it into place and I'll mimic it,
it could look like that.
Now, if this is pushed, it's good,
but just by barely touching the sander
on a location you didn't want to
or putting too much pressure,
you can end up with a large glue line.
Also, the limb wedge, the most common place in the glue up
where there's going to be a gap
is gonna be at the end of the fade out of the limb wedge
for two reasons.
One, you just don't have enough clamping pressure there.
Two is because the featheredness, it's not feathered enough
so it's not gradual enough coming into the limb.
So there's basically a steep angle there
and that's when it has a problem.
And then with your glue, make sure you have enough glue,
more clamps are better and you will have a great glue up.
All right, so I'm just here trying to shoot
a little bit of B-roll for you guys
and I cannot get over how smooth this shoots.
I built this one about four months ago
and it just blows my mind.
It's like for an all wood bow to be shooting,
like if I didn't know,
I would be thinking I'm shooting a fiberglass bow.
I'm just saying if the goal is smoothness,
this is one to consider.
