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Thursday,
January 17, 2008 1:44 PM
Here is a broken Hohokam pottery jar. This has the best collection
of glyphs mixed with later Pueblo designs (I"m way over
my head here). I'm going to use several of these designs on
the front (which is called the back in archery) of the bow,
painted over buff silk that will be glued on as a backing. |
Yes, it's blurry, but after walking up to this bird numerous
times, lift the camera, bird looks at me, waits until I
get ready to shoot, and then flies. Here at least I can
say there is a bird.
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Left:
Ocotillo,
pronounced oh coe tea oh or with an "ah" sound
on the end. People often think it is a cactus here, and
as you can see on the left, it is not, it has leaves.
It is very cool about being a leafy plant. It makes leaves
only in the 6 day period after a rain. It also puts out
flowers at the end of that time, and can only be pollinated
by humming birds. (shut up about long bills and short dicks).
When Phil and I were up at the fossil footprint area all
the ocotillo plants were putting on their leaves. They only
last the week, and then the plant drops the leaves which
conserves water. Tricky plant. |
Here's a little series
on the scraper and the bow - an update in pictures!
Here I am removing material along the limbs of the bow, making
it thinner so that it can bend. I hit with the hatchet, and
then hit again at a more oblique angle to shave off the chips.
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To know how much the bow bends at at what strength I needed
a tillering stick. This is it. The bottom bar is a hunk
of crate wood and the top is a 2X4 from the mine debris.
Can't see it clearly but there are a series of screws at
one inch intervals up the tillering stick.
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Finally got the courage to file then nocks. Haven't ruined
the bow yet. |
The bow has it's first pull on the tillering stand. It is
bending much farther today, looking like a real bow. Haven't
ruined it yet, but I'm commited to making shavings until
it draws 55lbs at 26 inches, or until the bow breaks. |
Here a rusty piece of metal and my tin snips. I need a scraper
as the bow proceeds. I'm making one because I can, I want
to, and of course, I'm cheap. |
I filed an edge to the scraper to see if it would work. It
was pretty soft and needed to be sharpened about every 2 seconds.
I needed to quit ORRRRR |
You guessed it - we're making higher carbon steel out of low
carbon steel (maybe). I painted the edge of the scraper with
wood glue and dusted it with flour. |
Can't see the blue flame of the stove but I have burnt off
the flour and glue which creates a carbon covering over the
steel, excluding oxygen. Then I heated it until it glowed
red, but I fell short of the bright red yellow usually needed.
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I quenched the steel in cold water and cleaned it up with a piece
of sandpaper. Sharpened it with the file, and now it can go about
5 minutes before needed a pass with the file. Better, not perfect,
but very pleasantly - free! I actually made two. One is wrapped
in duct tape and I made a wood and leather handle for the other
- easier on my hands.
That's aba aba aba all folks!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 9:35 AM
Pictures this morning - fossil foot and the desert. Tomorrow,
making a scraper out of rusted scrap, next day, all the tillering
shots up to now. Too much for one day. Suns out and it time to
goooooo!
Fossil foot is a controversy in this area. It is in rock that
we guess at 75 million years old. Heel is down, five toes
up. |
Heel up, toes down, little bit different light |
Peace brother. Saguro (sue-whar-row) cactus |
This is looking downstream from the fossil foot. |
Paloverde tree, larger than most of the side of Tyson's wash
about 10 minutes from my Airstream |
2 days after the rain last week, a very happy cresote plant.
We like cresote plants for two reasons. They don't have thorns
- a rarity out here, and bunnys eat their flowers and leaves,
and as you know I support eating bunnies are happy bunnies. |
Hard to see it here, but the rock is from the fossil foot
area and is reflective like it is painted with aluminum paint.
Phil thinks its feldspar. I know it doesn't taste good. |
Phil is here indicating the fossil foot location. I would
never have found the place of the foot without Phil. |
This is how we got here. 24 miles round trip from the trailer. |
Why am I here? Because hundreds of arroyos like this one,
hidden channels in the flat desert are so beautiful in the
morning that I almost cry. I love this. |
Wednesday, January 9, 2008 7:32 PM
Using the Nikon D70 camera my brother gifted me, I took 128 pictures
(some of those he took - the one of me for instance) while he
was here. I can see that because of the quality, and the lack
of it available at web photo sizes, I will only be able to give
you a taste of how great a camera this is.
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While
we waited for the parade, Butch, Gail and I walked through
Cecelia's Garden. Gary, Becky, kids and I walked through it
last year, so it was my second visit. This time I had my brother's
wonderful Nikon, the weather had been wet, and beauty was
afoot. |
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Barrel
cacti have the right stuff. I can't imagine, if plants thought,
thinking to myself, "Hey, this looks like a good spot!"
But
here it is, just downhill from the old abandoned gold mine,
living in who-knows-what tailings. |
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There
was a parade, Hi Jolly Daze parade. It times past there were
camel races. Not this year, we had wet, cold, but great cars,
interesting floats, and classic cars. |
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Last
night of the visit. The storm was over, David was on his way
home to Las Vegas, and we cut sticks, roasted hotdogs, and
enjoyed the fire. |
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Above
left: The mexican restaurant float. Above, the candy story
showed up with a John Deer Ice Cream Maker.
Left:
The abandoned gold mine near Q mountain.
Below
left: Brother Butch taking pictures of the grind holes,
and of this is what I look like when I'm sunburned, cold,
wet, and haven't had coffee.
Below: What can I say? This is exactly what I look like
most of the time - well I'm usually not cold. |
Brother
is very serious about taking great pictures. Many of you
at the helpdesk at PH have seen prints he has done. He doesn't
do people. He took my picture on the right. Wonder why he
doesn't do people?
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Thursday,
January 3, 2008 7:00 PM
Here is the handle drawn rough, and hacksawed reliefs previous
to whacking them with the hatchet. |
Later in the evening here is the roughed out handle - sorry
the picture sucks. I'll do better tomorrow. |
Besides, doing the next scene for my novel (click
here to jump to today's new scene), I hiked over past
Q mountain, the side opposite me. That is Quartzite to the
left, Q mountain on the right, and the intaglio that Gary
found when he was here last year.
Right:
You can see the mountains the arrow is pointing to. I suspect
that is where the fish were a thousand years ago. |
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Just to the right of the arrow above, there is a fish, at
the top of the gravel, with his mouth open, then above him
the stick figure of a man. I have no idea on the other scrapings. |
Here is a slightly better shot of the fish. It would be good
to shoot these pictures from above. Intaglios are made by
removing the desert varnished rocks, exposing the lighter
material beneath. Sometimes, such as in the Bouse fisherman,
white quartz is used for highlights. The cool thing is that
they are soooo fucking old - more than a few hundred, and
more likely a thousand years old. |
Brother and
Gail are coming tomorrow, I'm meeting Phil for coffee first. Cloudy
today for the first time since I was here, but not Oregon like
clouds, think overcast light, where the sunlight still comes through,
just dimmished. We wouldn't even count this as overcast.
Wednesday,
January 2, 2008 8:49 PM
I walked this morning to the petroglyph site, and took several
pictures of glyphs that are hard to see when the sun works around
more to the south. The low angle of the winter sun and the early
hour made it possible for me to take pictures of a few of the
glyphs that I have not photographed before because they are so
indistinct. See the lower right picture for an example.
Upon return it was filling the water tank and while doing that
via siphon, I got to work on the scary part of thinking the bow
stave on the belly, the wide way, instead of narrow edges like
yesterday. I started by making hacksaw cuts to the right depth
down the length of the belly, leaving the handle area (handle
to be) full thickness.
The process
was actually easier than I thought. I was somewhat timid so
there will be much to take off before I'm ready to begin the
tillering.
Tillering is the bending of the bow, a little at a time, and
each time removing a little more wood to make it bend perfectly. |
Out of
order but such a pretty shot of Q mountain in the background.
Here is the handle after 3 hours under the trailer tongue. |
I could
have bought C clamps to glue the two pieces of wood together
to form the eventual handle, but you know me. CHEEEEEEP!
So what did I have that could make hundreds of pounds of
pressure. Piles of rocks - no, but wait, the trailer tongue
wait is 750 lbs. So I used the front lifting jack, stacked
up the bow and the handle addition, and cranked the trailer
up off of the jack stands. That gave me a full 750lbs over
about 8 square inches, not perfect but close according to
the Titebond glue company.
Right:
this is a very indistinct petroglyph, possible one on top
of another. When they are lower on the wall, I think the
blowing sand works at them more destructively. |
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Tuesday, January 1, 2008 12:48 PM
Sunny but getting cloudy this New Year's day. Here are some pictures
of my board bow that I have had planned for some number of years.
Actually I was planning a stave self bow, but I couldn't find
a whole small trunk of Juniper, Yew, Osage Orange, or hickory.
So I'm making a red oak self bow - meaning the wood does the shooting
and there is no fiberglass. If I don't fuck it up - which is a
big if, since I have only three tools and no wood vise or tillering
stick - if my Granfors Bruk axe doesn't slip and ruin the project,
if my eye is true and my soul - you get the idea. All that being
true it will be 1 and 3/4 inch wide, have a handle, a thicker
section in the middel, the front - which is called the back in
bow making will be covered in silk, painted with Pueblo Indian
pot designs, and maybe a petroglyph. The bowstring will be Flemish
twist, and it will be finished in polyurethane after it has been
finished and shot. This is a project that has a high degree of
possible screw up, but I've read the best people, all of whom
are much more patient than I, and I should be able to do this.
I will have to buy a few things for the project - two C clamps,
one 2X4 6' long, Titebond 3 glue or Titebond 2 (this is Q you
know). But the project is fun, hard, and will give me a bow to
go with those arrow shoots that I collected from the willows in
the wash last year. Besides I've had the red oak floor board under
my mattress for a few months and it is one pretty piece of wood
that deserves a chance at something more, something better than
being a floor. Not that floor isn't good, a floor is great, and
oak floors are really really great. But a 55 lb hunting bow, faced
with silk and sporting tufted rabbit fur string silencers, well,
there you have it, that's a different level of glorious. Of course
there is the chance, a good chance that in reaching for this level
of boardom, that firewood might be the result.
We all decide that for our bows, our floors, and for ourselves,
as we sit careful, quiet, safe, asleep.
Floor, firewood or glory?
Here I've drawn out the bow on the 78" piece of red
oak flooring. I've hacksawed off the end, making the bow
72" long for now (it will be 70.5" long when finished
-I hope :)
As you
can see above I've hacksawed into and just touching the
lines. I then used my hatchet and trimmed ti as you see
on the right. Also on the right you'll see that I have hacksawed
- this morning, very carefully- the cuts on the oak floor
board on the flat side. Flooring boards have bump and are
not flat. I could have used the other side as the back of
the bow, but this piece of wood has a natural curve, so
this side has to be flat. |
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Here is the Gransfors Bruk in action. This is my swedish hatchet
and if I could have sex with it I would. It is that great.
I've even got a picture of the guy in the factory that made
MY hatchet. It is very sharp. Yes, that is how I know. |
Above you can see the result after I've taken off the bump
with the hatchet. I've tried to tilt the board in the sun
so that you can see that I have left the smallest rise remaining
to finish with my surform file. |
| The
next step is to remove material from the back. The board
will taper from 5/8 at the ends of the handle in the middle
to 3/8" at the nocks (where the bow string goes). This
means I will make many cuts across the whole width of the
board and remove the material with the hatchet, then smooth
with the surform file. Gulp! |
Enough
for now, tempus fucket, (fuck storms) or tempis fugit (time
flies - I think I spelt that right).
Happy
New Year's ckickies where ever you are! Especially all you
back there in the cubicle seats! |
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