Built almost completely with what I had on hand. 2×4 frame, 1/2 hp motor spinning at 1725rpm. 5” MDF disks on a 5/8” cold-rolled axle. No velcro for the sandpaper, just wrapped around the drum. Adjustment is via a piece of 5/16” all-thread I had in the shop. The table is 12” wide with a usable sanding of 11” (if you get too close to the edge of the drum, the sandpaper will get knocked loose). I plug the shop-vac into the “hood” and it does a really amazing job of keeping the dust under control.

Total cost was about $50 with $25 of that for the link-belt I got at Harbor Freight.

I wasn’t hard to build. Cutting the disks on the bandsaw then truing to the table took the most time.

The thinnest I’ve sanded so far is 3/32”. That was actually by accident. I had re-sawed a piece of stock slightly more than 1/8”, figuring that by the time I sanded out the tool marks it would be 1/8”. Unfortunately the marks left by the bandsaw were deeper than I anticipated so I ended up at 3/32”. Which I thought was pretty impressive all things considered.

So I would recommend taking the plunge if you are even remotely thinking of having a thickness sander.

Bill W

When I started this bow, I have to admit that it was a bit of a folly and I had no idea how it would turn out. Didn’t even think to photograph the progress so this is not a complete “build-along”. No, it’s more of “Wow, I did this!”

The design is what is called a pyramid, flat-bow. Pyramid because the limbs of the bow are long triangles, tapering from about 1/2” at the tip to about 2” near the handle. This design is very forgiving of both wood and technique. But it does yield a nice, shootable bow. It also has a non-bending handle, i.e., when drawn, the tension stops at the handle and the wood does not bend through the handle. This is accomplished by cutting what are known as fades.

Next stop is cutting the taper in the limbs. Didn’t photograph that, sorry. Once I got the limbs cut and roughed out, the wood removal process starts on the belly of the bow. The belly is the part of the bow that faces you when you are shooting. The idea is to remove equal amounts of wood so that the limbs bend evenly throughout the drawing of the bow. This then leads to a process known as tillering. Tillering is gently bending the bow to get the wood used to bending as well as ensuring even bending on both limbs. A board known as a tillering tree is used for this process.

Removal of wood on the limbs is also how you get the draw-weight to where you want it. Mine ended up at about 45lbs at 27” (my draw-length). A little more than I was shooting for but still good for me.

Once I got the draw-weight and tiller where I was happy, I cut in the handle and shaped it.

A little more sanding, some finish (wiped-on poly) and I now have a bow! Total cost about $20 for wood, glue, and finish.

Shortly after I signed up on LJ, I ran across a project post by another member showing a wood bow he built using just a 1×2 piece of red oak. NEVER would have dreamed that was possible. “Everyone knows” you have to build a bow out of a piece of yew, right? Well, turns out “everyone” is wrong. Not only that, with some careful work I should be able to build a bow for just a few bucks that also has a light draw weight.

So off to google-land and I start researching. Turns out quite a few folks are building what are called board-bows using red oak that they get from the local big-box store. And even more surprising to me, the bows are holding up. Since this looks do-able, inexpensive, I decide to give it a try. Worst case I end up blowing about $8 for a piece of red oak.

My goal was to build a pyramid-style bow with a 35# draw @ 27” (my draw-length). Pyramid-style means that the limbs of the bow look like a pyramid or elongated triangle. I also decided to make it about 69” long.

Here are some pics of the wood I ended up with:

End-view:

What will be the back of the bow:

Glued a piece of canarywood to the handle area to make it a bit beefier

Now that I know a little more than I did before I started, I can say that it turns out this piece was not a great choice. Grain runs off the edge in a few places which can lead to splintering and breakage. But, as I later found out, not always.

More to come tomorrow.

Bill