MAster tapers

[darkside]

Guys,

I have managed to get my hands on some bamboo flooring of various colours and was wondering how you made your master tapers.Also when making a bamboo bow do you have to glass over top or not, i have read john clarkes book and i am going about drawing up a form of what i want my bow to look like.I am going to make a draft bow out of pine to practice my correct wordworking technics. I hope to start on the bow in a week or two, and hopefully if i get it right i will make another for a mate and his son.Any help would be appreciated.

[gundy]

Welcome DS!

Would love to see some photos when you get started! Something I have always been interested in trying, but never had a crack as yet.

[Graeme K]

The most common thing seems to be to buy a set of tapers from someone and use them as your master taper -- often by gluing them to something. It is not difficult to make your own but it depends on what you are using to grind yours with. If it is possible to get something fairly thick through your grinder all you have to do is find a piece of something that will not bend due to the cutting load and pack up one end with a spacer equal to the amount of taper you want over that distance. I actually have a metal jig that is sort of 2 long hinged bits of metal that you put a spacer in between to get any taper you want .
Obviously this only works if you have the sort of grinder that has a long flat table but you could probably make it work with 2 stiff bits and the spacer in between if you are using a drum sander with a short power fed belt .
Its late and this may be a bit garbled so I hope you get the idea.

Graeme

[darkside]

OK thanks Graeme, i will try work something out, i am going to be buying a drum sander but have also had a look around at some of the belt/disk sander units that are available. At the moment i will probably try something using the drum sander.

[coolhippy80]

graeme, i like that idea of the hinged bits of metal you had... its so simple!

Gus.