Bear Tamerlane Refinish

  My latest hobby had been around traditional archery.  I really like shooting these traditional configuration bows, including longbow, hybrid, reflex/deflex, and recurve.  As such, I have been finding some older Bear bows to collect, starting with my Dad's Bear Tigercat 62" long, 45# at 28" draw.  I also looked around and got ahold of an old Bear Tamerlane 69" recurve.  These old bows, along with the Tartar and Temujin models were used for target shooting.  In their time, they were some of the best target models around.  This old bow was in need of some help.  It had no finish left, and the hardware was also gone, including a Bear coin, front riser insert, and adjustable riser sight that fit in a routed slot in these bows.  I wanted to restore this one as close as possible to its original condition.  The wood it very beautiful. 

(click any picture for larger image)

It has been super hard to find a sight or even a cover to enclose the open routed slot in the riser, to I created an aluminum one for now.  I also found a Bear coin and and front riser insert from 3RiversArchery.com.  That made it possible to finish the bow nearly correct.

The other big issue was the vertical cracks on the front and back of the limbs.  Thes cracks are typical and will not hurt the function of the bow.  However, they look really bad and because of the darker under-layer, they show up clearly, making for an uglier sight than I wanted.  I found some directions for filling and stabilizing these crack on the TradGang.com web site.  This operation, would have hidden the cracks on a darker glass bow limb, but with the white, it just shows up too much.  So, I finally decided to try another approach.  I looked until I found a paint that was the right shade of off-white to match the limbs. It is called 'antique white' and its in a spray at Home Depot.  I used a very thin layer, so that it would reduce the risk of cracking, but just enough to cover the cracks.

The result was a very nice finish and a after adding 4-5 coats of clear finish, I got a flemish string made and got it nocked.

When I finally got to shoot it, I found that the pull was very smooth and had very little stacking.  The heavy riser absorbs almost all the vibrations, and the releas is very easy.  I shot about 250 arrows without much fatigue.  It really was a pleasure to shoot. 

Next, I need to find a way to put some duplicate decals on the bow. This one is an HC-30  With that final touch, it will be nearly perfect.  I still need to find an original sight, though.