Let this outline taper in a gentle curve to the extremities of the bow,
where it has a width of three-quarters of an inch. This will serve as a
rough working plan and is sufficiently large to insure that you will
get a strong weapon.
With the draw knife, and later a jack plane, cut the lateral surfaces
down to this outline. The back must stand a tremendous tensile strain
and the grain of the wood should not be injured in any way. But you may
smooth it off very judiciously with a spoke shave, and later with a
file. The transverse contour of this part of the bow remains as it was
in the tree, a long flat arc.
Shift the stave in the vise so that the sap wood is downward, and set
it so that the average plane of the sap is level. With the raw knife
shave the wood very carefully, avoiding cutting too deeply or splitting
off fragments, until the bow assumes the thickness of one and
one-quarter inches in the center and this decreases as it approaches
the tips, where it is half an inch thick.
The shape of a cross-section of the belly of the bow should be a full
Roman arch. Many debates have centered on the shape of this part of the
weapon.
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