Catastrophic Tip Failure! Can it be fixed?

So today we're gonna do something kind of interesting, kind of fun. We've been getting a lot of requests on all these bows.

I'm working on that.

We do some videos on the repairs, which I do think that's interesting too. How to repair these bows or how we go about it or if we can be successful. So today what I've got here is a Old Mountain Mesa 2 and relatively new bow. It's not brand brand new, but it's relatively new. It's a 60 inch, 55 pounder. So we're going to reduce this to reduce it down to £50, but we can't even string it at this point and I'll show you why. So on this tip here, it's either been dry fired or shooting two light of arrows or something. But if you first look at that, you can see that little crack right there. You think, oh, well, just the laminations are coming off the tip overlays. Well, it's a lot. It's a lot bigger problem than that. This hole, it's down into the core and basically it's broke inside here. You can see these two cracks here. It's coming down there. So it's not just the tip overlays, it's actually the core of the tip. It's broken. So we're gonna see if we can repair this. And I'm going to do something I've never done before on here. We're going to see if it works. If it doesn't work, what we're going to end up having to do is shortening the bow, which isn't the end of the world. However, this, this bow is already plenty short for the length of the riser. The working limb ratio is probably already almost compromised just the design of it. So the fade out now we're still good. We got 21 inches of working limb, which that's good for an R D bow. But if we shorten it, we're gonna get down into like the 20 inch or the 19 and a half inch range. Way too short for this limb profile. And the bow will not perform good. So we want to fix this tip without having to shorten it. So we're gonna see if we can do it. And to get us started, we'll head over to the band saw. All right, I'm just going to nip this end off and then it's going to show us a little bit of how, what damage we've got here. Okay. So looking at this, you can see if you look at that right there, you See that oval right there? That. That oval is literally the piece of the core that is compromised. You can see it bulging out down here. And then, of course, the crack at the top. So we're going to keep this piece so we know what it looks like. Of course, we have the other side. So what we're going to do now is we're going to cut this on an angle, and we're going to try a tip repair that I have never tried before. It may work, it may not. Let's go over to the knife grinders. Okay, here we are at my small knife grinder. And what I'm going to do first, I'm going to. I'm just going to draw a line on there with the square here. Kind of what I want it. What the angle that I want to cut here. So essentially, I'm gonna come down here like this. We got to get all of the damage. This is just sort of a landmark. It's not going to be exactly where I'm going to put it, but, you know, I got to take this damage out here, and you can see those cracks are down into there. So that's where. Just give us a reference line. Then I'm gonna try something. I was looking at this. I'm gonna put my foot down there like this, sort of as a jig. We're gonna redneck this thing, and then essentially, if we keep it exactly the same spot and don't move my foot, Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put my foot down there, then I'm gonna draw a line. All right.

What?

I don't get much more redneck than this, but that's just so that I keep it the same spot. Oh, and now I just noticed I'm on an angle. So now I'm going to move it again over here. Line that up. Sometimes eyeballing it literally is better than anything if you've got a sense of proportions. Okay, that looks square. So I'm gonna draw another line.

And.

Then I'm gonna make an arrow pointing to that one. Okay. All right, here we go. We're gonna try this it.

Okay.

Now, keeping my foot at the same spot, I'm going to look at this. I'm a little bit of an angle on an angle there. So I'm going to correct that.

And.

I want to come in on that side. Okay, that's looking real good. That's straightening up nicely. Looking good. You can see the damage is right there, but that's in the overlay. We've Taken all the damage out down into the limb. So keep going. Straighten this a little bit better. Really close. Nearly perfect. Okay. Pretty difficult here. There we go. Okay, I got that. About as good as you're gonna get it, but that's a nice glue surface. So now you can see that that's the carbon layer. Bamboo. Bamboo. This is a black glass and black glass. This is. This is gonna get really, really interesting here. Kind of excited about this. So now what we're going to do is we're going to glue tip reinforcements on there. And the reason I put on such a long angle because I wanted to catch all these layers and glue them together. So that's what we're going to do now. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to find the center of this. So technically, about the center of this riser, we're going to be about right here, 30 inches down. About 30 inches. And over here. Yeah, that's not going to be quite the center. Okay. 31. I've got this piece here. I'll show you how much we took off. So this would have been on here about like. Oh, yeah. Probably around here somewhere. So we need to add that much material. 29. Okay. So I need to take a block of FR4. I'm just going to go straight FR4 and we're going to glue. Now this is going to be very important how we run this grain structure. We don't want to create a shear. So looking at this, this particular piece. But it's running like this, I believe. No, it's not. No, it's running like this. So if I put it like this, that string is. That's really not the ideal. Let's see here. Yeah. I wonder if I ran it like this. Run it like that. Yeah, that should be better. So I need. I need my. My lamination lines to run this way. But I'm not sure if I'll get enough out of this. Let's measure. Yeah, I should be okay with this piece. So I'm gonna take this. We've got a good side here. We're gonna rough this up some more, But I'm gonna go ahead and cut this off about right here. So that's all nice and square there. Nick's doing a fantastic job cleaning in here. Whoa. That's a nice, roughed up surface. Now we're going to cut this off on the glass saw. Okay. Now we're going to glue that on. I'm going to go ahead and move it all the way out there. So When I glue this, I need to have perfect clamping pressure here. So I'm going to do a dry fit. That's a beautiful glue line. That's nice and tight. So let's go take it to the glue up table and put a clamp on it and see how it's going to perform. We probably are going to have to make a block that is the same curvature as that. Try it first, though. So we're gonna clamp this. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, that's absolutely perfect. Okay. We're not gonna need to make a clamping block. Okay. Let's mix up a little bit of glue and we'll glue that on there. So the plan is, after I have this boot on there, I'm gonna shape this to follow the limb. Now, this is just a unique way of fixing this. And I'm doing it for the very first time I've ever tried this on video. So I can already think of several things that for the next one, I probably would do different. One thing is we're adding quite a bit of FR4 to the tip, and that's going to add weight quite. But by the time we clean it up, it won't be that much weight. But it may throw the bow off just because it's adding more weight to that tip. So I may end up. I'll probably do this to the other side. But before we do it to the other side, we're going to see if this repair fits. Because really, as long as this riser is as short as this limb is, to shorten this bow would not be a good plan because it just simply would not. Shoot. Shoot very good. Because you wouldn't have enough working limb. The limb ratio would be off in relation to where the fade out ends and how long the riser is. So we're gonna give this a whirl and we'll see. If nothing else, we'll definitely educate ourselves more, which is always valuable. Then the plan is, after I get this sandwiched on and I get this all formed to the limb, what I'm going to do is I'm going to run thin pieces of FR4 across. So then this piece will be sandwiched between two pieces of reinforcing FR4. So it'll be like a sandwich repair. So in a perfect world, it'll work. But we're going to find out. Let's mix up a little bit of glue here. All right, so we got our glue mixed up. That's a really boring part. So we didn't show that this isn't going to take just a lot of glue, but we still have to get it on there perfect. So want to coat both sides of this. And all the cracks are gone. So that's good. And then this is the side. I roughed this up with 40 grit. So we're just going to really get that glue pressed in there. Using a roller like this is really accurate because you can press it deeply into the. The blue score lines that you made. So that there's. So it's really on there. Tight and good and deep. That covers every square inch. Okay. So I didn't get any glue on the bow, so we're just going to set that there, and I'm going to move it all the way back because. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a little bit of tape on my this so it doesn't come off. So it does come off. The tape will just come off and stick to the glue, but it won't glue my clamp piece there. Thought about wrapping that piece in plastic, but I want to be able to see everything. I wouldn't be able to see it as well. Okay, here we go. So what I did, I'm just. I'm just letting this thing sit where it naturally does. That way, when it's in the oven, it's not going to try to pull away. And we're gonna clamp. We don't have to worry so much about that overlay because that's going to get ground off anyway. Okay, let's see how she looks. Oh, that's beautiful. I've got good squeeze out everywhere. Like I said. This little overlay here, that's all coming off, so that doesn't have to be glued down that very well. But I've got good squeeze out all the way around. Cool. So just to put it into perspective, this will be ground in line with the limb. I thought about using, like, wood so it wasn't so heavy, but I really want it to be strong. So this will be, you know, it'll follow that limb on up just like that for the new tip. And then we'll overlay this with a piece of either black glass or G10. Just sandwich that whole repair together and then carve our new string groove in there. We'll see. Never done it. Never tried this particular thing before. I have thought about this for a while, and I've always wanted to try it. I thought, well, I'll try it on camera. And just to show you that I don't have everything always planned out, and if it fails, it fails on camera. See what happens. Let's go put it in the oven. So this is what. This is a prime example of necessity being the mother of invention, because it's definitely something I haven't done before. So we needed to fix the tip. That's the necessity we invented this method. I do have some other ideas on how to fix tips that I'm going to show in the future, but this is just one of them that I've been wanting to try. So I'm kind of excited to see what happens. Put it in there, and let's see. I had it laying like that, so we'll lay it same way. And there she is. All right, let it sit for an hour, and we'll pick you up when we go to the next. The next step.

I mated it perfectly, ground it flush.

You can see how it's square to.

The limb on that side, square to the limb on this side.

I don't know why I'm having trouble.

Focusing my camera today. So what I'm going to do now.

Is I'm going to take these.

These pieces of card here, and I'm. We're gonna sandwich. We're gonna sandwich that. That injury there with carbon on both sides of this limb. I got two pieces, and we're gonna sandwich that on there like that, reinforce that. We're gonna fade this into the glass real pretty, and we're gonna see if that tip holds. Being reinforced with carbon on both sides. FR four piece coming up from the core of the limb.

There's a good chance it'll hold.

The only thing I'm fairly worried about is what's it going to do to.

The performance of the bow.

It'll be interesting to see how much this changes it, you know, because.

With.

This here fr4 here, we are adding weight to that tip. And as any bow your nose, that's never a good thing to add weight.

To the bow tip.

And plus, if one bow tips heavier than the other. Okay, guys, we're out of the oven. We got the carbon fiber sandwiching that FR4 with the limb. There's actually a layer of carbon in the center of this limb. After crunching some numbers, what I decided to do is make this limb about a quarter inch or so shorter. And what that will do is it will speed up this limb tip up just a little bit because this limb tip will be heavier. So we need to increase the speed of this limb tip a little bit to even it out. So that should make up the difference here we are out of the oven.

With the tip overlays glued on. I went with white glass and diamond luxe just like the other tip. So that was pretty much straightforward procedure. Didn't feel like I need to show that too much of that. So we're going to go ahead and feather it on in, grind us a.

String groove in there and we're going.

To string it up and see if this type of repair is actually valid or if it's a total failure. It's fixing to get really interesting here. So I got it done, I got it finished. I'm really excited about it. Here it is finished up and I made it look a little bit like the other one, but not quite because if I would have, if I went made it exactly like the other one, that would have been a lot more extra work. And I've already put a huge amount of work into this tip. So it does work. It's completely stable. It's awesome. But the question is, will it last? So what I did find out about this bow, it's marked at a 60 inch. It is not a 60 inch, it's a 58 inch bow. I did shorten this just a tiny bit to speed that up, but nothing even remotely close to changing it to 58 inches. I know it's a 58 inch bow. It's also 55 pounds, so it's a fairly heavy bow. And so this is going to put quite a bit of stress and strain on that tip. So it's going to be a really good test to see if it will last. Also, one thing about this bow is the shelf is way higher above the fulcrum of the bow than normal. So it's over an inch and a half above the center of the bow. That's not really good from a bowyer's perspective, but it can be adjusted. It'll be okay, but you really want everything close down as close to the fulcrum of the pull point as possible. Mine are usually a 1 inch above, but it's fine. And I'm actually pretty pleased with the performance of this bow. It's really fast. It's probably not extremely smooth to draw, but that's because I draw long on a 58 inch bow. But it's really fast and arrows are coming out like lasers. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to shoot between 50 and 100 arrows and we're just going to put a lot of strain on this tip and see if we're okay.

Right.

I'VE shot several arrows, a bunch of arrows through it already, and there's no movement.

It's perfect.

It feels good. It's fast. So we're going to really put the stress test on it now and see if she holds up. I'm not used to that incredible stiffness because it's so short. I kind of jerked that one.

That's better.

I am just shooting them out, spitting them out like a laser.

There again, I yanked that one.

Let me really focus on my release here.

Better?

Yeah, It's.

It's perfect. Nothing wrong with it.

If you want an old mountain mesa bow, it's. It's. It's a really fast little bow, but don't plan on it being super smooth.

One thing I was.

One thing I was looking for is if this heavier kip would build in hand shock. But there's no hand shock. It's just as smooth as it was.

Of course, I did not shoot it.

Before because I couldn't because it was unsuitable.

But it's.

It's still really smooth. There's no extra hand shock in it at all. It's just smooth and stable. So looking at it, after a bunch more shots here, it's absolutely perfect. No glue lines opening up, nothing.

It's just.

It's gonna work perfect. It doesn't even look too bad. I mean, you can tell it's different.

Than the other one, but it. It really.

It's. It looks great. So. Well, I guess we know that this. This method does work. So the question is, will it last? If it lasts, we're golden. However, the cost to repair a tip like this. You wouldn't want to do it unless it was, you know, a real favorite bow. It can be done, but I will never charge what I need. The. The cost of me repairing this tip would be more than the price of this bow new. So that. That's kind of an issue.