(no subject)
Yesterday some rasp work slimmed down the atlatl, rounded off a crosspeg and a slightly smaller drill bit and took several bites out of my knuckles. The drilling commenced....
...and immediately ran into trouble.
Because I was drilling into a curved surface it started to drift off centre and I couldnt pull it back in line. I admitted defeat and drilled the hole with a modern twist drill. For future builds I would drill into a flat face early in the build to get the hole well under way before shaping the surface.
Also, because Damson is seriously hard dense wood it took ages just to create this small dimple that wasnt even up to full diameter yet. On the plus side, my bow-drill technique is now well practised :)
And today it is finished! The crosspeg has been shortened and glued into place. Two grades of sandpaper and linseed oil provide the bling. I didnt succeed in my main goal, which was to primitively drill the hole as the original would have been. However I learned useful things in the process and got a good atlatl to show for it.
