I have been putting off restoring this bow due to the color of the glass. You will notice in the before pictures that the glass appears to be full of little tiny brown fibers. This wouldn't be a problem if there was no stress cracking that needed repair, but there was quite a bit of stress cracking and I wanted to make the bow look like new again. Repairing cracks on light colored bows always leaves dark lines where the crack was. So, I pondered on how best to do the glass for quite a while. I had a couple of ideas but didn't want to do anything that could not be undone. I repaired the cracks in the glass and sanded everything down to bare wood and glass then I started coating the bow with urethane to seal up all of the pores. That way, if what I tried didn't work, I could always sand away the mistake and start over without trying to clean up the pores in the glass or wood.
It took me a couple of tries to get the color to match and I learned a few new tricks along the way. It took about a month of spraying, sanding, spraying and sanding some more, until I was satisfied. I came away from this job not really wanting to do another restore on a bow with light colored glass, but I am also very pleased with the final results.
For those of you that like the old bows, here are a few pictures of how good a factory bow could look fifty three years ago.
It took me a couple of tries to get the color to match and I learned a few new tricks along the way. It took about a month of spraying, sanding, spraying and sanding some more, until I was satisfied. I came away from this job not really wanting to do another restore on a bow with light colored glass, but I am also very pleased with the final results.
For those of you that like the old bows, here are a few pictures of how good a factory bow could look fifty three years ago.
Attached Files
Comment