Bowsaw, 3D-Cut Maple

[Tailmaker]

For most of my curved cuts I do use a band saw but sometimes a traditional bowsaw can come handy. Not to mention the street cred boost as a woodworker if such a thing hangs on the wall...
I got the inspiration (and some dimensions) from Willard Anderson's article in 3/2016 Popular Woodworking who recreated a 19th century Howarth bowsaw. I modified the design to be made 100% on a CNC machine and avoid the hand mortising and drilling of parts. Since the 3d-models are anyway created from scratch I tried to give them a more streamlined design. The blade length ended up 16" long and is a piece of 3/16" bandsaw blade. But the design can be scaled to accommodate the more common 12" or 24" blades as well.

The entire saw weighs only 12 ounces (340 grams) and while looking delicate it is quite solid. But maybe could be made a little beefier.

Complete saw, finished and assembled:

3D Models in Aspire. The cheecks (upright arms) and the handles are made as 2 halves to be glued together, the cheecks also doweled to prevent splitting:

Cutting the parts:

[Tailmaker]

Some detail pictures.
All parts are made from a 3/4" remnant board of birdseye maple.

Rear handle. The pins are partially threaded 3"x5/16" (75x8mm) brass bolts, head cut off and epoxied with the threaded part into the handle halves:

Front handle and cheek. The stretcher sits with a swiveling tenon in the cheeks:

The windlass toggle locks with a button into a groove of the stretcher. I used a piece of hemp twine as a bow string:

[Mike-S]

Looks too pretty to use.

[scottp55]

You're going to have to build a wall mount glass display case in your garage for your "Home Made Tools" G.
I'd display it in my house, and come in and grab it only when needed:)
Beautiful and graceful use of the highly figured Birdseye!!
What finish did you go with?
Well done!
IF you ever make an extra one...Ya know where I live:)
I'll EVEN pay postage
scott

[mtylerfl]

Wow! You do such great work - beautiful job!

[LittleGreyMan]

Looks too pretty to use.

+1

[dwilli9013]

Fine craftsmanship. I also would find this very hard to use. Thanks for sharing.

[Tailmaker]

Thanks guys,

as mentioned, having a bandsaw this one will be used only accasionally. But I wanted to have one for a while.

... I also would find this very hard to use....

Not really. It does take some practice and before the availability of electric bandsaws or jigsaws it was pretty much the only way to make curved cuts.
Actually a pretty good workout

....IF you ever make an extra one...Ya know where I live....

Well, not planned for now but I think the size would fit your SB Desktop. Let me know if you want the Vcarve version of the design. It took me about 2 days to cut, sand, finish and assemble it (probably another 2 days for the CAD design).
The finish is actually simple Danish Oil. One coat so far which is O.K. but I am probably going to rub on another one or two coats. I will also see to get a better blade. The 15TPI bandsaw blade is very aggressive and I would like a smoother cutting action. I may get a finer 1/8" blade and braze on the end tabs (because that is too narrow to be drilled for pins).

[scottp55]

Thanks for the vid G. !
On the vertical use, I'd pulp my knees to hamburg in the 'Chair though.
BUT, it looks way faster than my little 12" throat fret saw, and still have some blades from my big Inca bandsaw I had to sell.
So I think I'll take you up on your kind offer now that I downloaded VCP9.5 Shopbot Edition today:)
.crv or even .stl would be fantastic and greatly appreciated!!
Even have a good selection of Birdseye 5-7/4 in the rafters(Though I let Huston and Company cherry pick 150bf of the best) so it won't be Quite as highly figured as yours.
Yep, Danish oil made yours POP:)
What a gracious offer G....You're too kind!
Be good to finish it with all the hand tools I rarely use anymore.
MINE will hang in the house until needed though
Your "tool" projects are truly beautiful!
scott

[Tailmaker]

Scott,
I emailed you two zipped .stl files. Unfortunately, I found Aspire does not save the 3-d model or the related toolpaths in .crv format, although this is only a single imported .stl model. Maybe because the model consists of several components.
That is unfortunate because it took me a while to get the tabs, boundaries and limit planes for the 2-sided job to work leaving the flat glue joints of the cheeks/uprights unmachined.

Next time I will do such jobs in VcarvePro to start with for better compatibility.

Anyway, enjoy!

[scottp55]

Got them even before the espresso was done G.
GREAT way to start the day!
I'll check them out when I have 3 brain cells to rub together:)
(That's my minimum for CNC work.)
May have my Aspire friend in Oz separate the components if possible, OR finally taking the Aspire plunge.
Thank you again kind Sir!!
scott

[Phil]

I think it's very cool that you made an old world woodworking tool on a high tech woodworking machine. I have a few old hand tools hanging above my Shopbot.

Phil

[scottp55]

No problems G.
Need to watch a couple more tutorials, but the Stretcher Handles, just needs to be tabbed and tweaked
THANKS!!
scott

[Bobtail Farm]

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing!

[Tailmaker]

Just because it came out so nice, I made another one in Walnut (I was told it is probably "Claro Walnut"). But actually I used it to test the conversion of the Aspire file to VcarvePro file (since Aspire did not allow me to export the model and related tool paths directly). A bit cumbersome but doable. If there is interest, I can post the files and some instructions on my web site. Well, if there is no interest, I will save the effort...

Walnut parts cut and finished:

Walnut grain patterns:

Complete saw: