Bow rack

I mostly have cheap bows and keep them in the barn. But, I do have a few nice ones and it has been running very cold and wet for a week now and want to keep the better ones in the house and it’s no good leaning them up in the closet so I made a bow rack.

The wood is reclaimed oak locally cut and used to make an old corral on our place. I have no idea of its age but it’s decades anyway. We have been on this place for 10 years and the corral was old when we came here.

The back shot shows how the pieces were fit together. I notched both relief cuts with the table saw. I then cut the waste out of the bottom reliefs with the band saw and the upper ones I just made some passes over the table saw and cut out the waste with a wood chisel. I glued the pieces and used screws as shown. I have some hanging hardware I’ll put on the back to hang the bow. I just didn’t think to put them on before taking the photos.

The bow notches I just drew out by hand. I made the bottom radii by first boring out a hole with a boring bit. I measured out the hole locations to even out the spacing, drew out straight lines to keep the slots consistent and hand drew the curves for appearance. I cut the slots of the first out on the band saw then traced the first onto the second for accurate duplication. To finish them I clamped the two pieces together and used my oscillating drum sander to smooth, blend and even up both parts. I put some felt on the slots to prevent scratching.

Actually, I goofed in setting the slots too deep and I was concerned that there wasn’t enough stock left on the back to make the rack sturdy. That’s why the slotted pieces are attached to the wider vertical base pieces that are attached to the horizontal runners. As it happens, I think the total effect is actually better anyway. Beginner’s luck. :)

I stained the wood with Minwax chestnut color and used brushed on spar urethane to finish. There are some long running checks in some of the pieces but they don’t hurt anything and attests to the wood’s age. Call it “character.” :)

For those interested, the bow in the pics is, a 37#/66” York “Coronet” target bow made about 1976. I have had it for about 5 years and it is a sweet shooter.