Monday, June 14, 2010

The Bow Bench Lives!

I took the new bow bench to the SCA tournament this past Saturday and got to give it a good workout.
I have to say, it worked great and I'm quite pleased with it.
The bench occasionally seems a little rickety if you sit on it and wiggle your butt but in use it is reasonably steady and holds the stave just fine. While I had no issues with the stave slipping as I reefed on it with a draw knife I am on the lookout for some heavy rubber-like material to put on the clamping surfaces.
Putting it together and breaking it down at the end of the day was a breeze. I kept a wrench handy and used it to remove the foot pedal support arm. That allowed the clamping head to come out; remove the legs and it was ready to go into the truck.


If it looks as if we were set up away from everyone else, we were. That's the hazard of putting up the overhead before you see where the others are going up and of forgetting that in the SCA everything revolves around the fighting eric. On the other hand, just about everyone walking to the bathroom had to go right by us and many people stopped to chat and ask questions about what I was doing.

Happy shaving!

2 comments:

Fayme Zelena Harper said...

People were so amazed to see someone actually making a bow. It looks like a good workout too.

Guy Taylor said...

Yes, this is a project quite a bit different than what is usually seen at an SCA event. My hope is to get more people at least a little bit interested in making their archery equipment.
It would have been less of a workout if I'd sharpen my drawknife and use the hatchet a little bit more. For that I need to be on the lookout for a small stump that I can set the tip of the stave on while cutting with the hatchet. Just using the grass wasn't working that well.