Restoring an old bow

[ThePaleoguy]

I've been scouring the internet for information regarding restoring vintage recurve bows. I've spent my entire life using my grandfather's old fiberglass recurve, a green Shakespeare B-8 rocket, 45#. It still works just fine (I just used it today, in fact) but now I have a rather rough Shakespeare Sierra X-18 40-pounder which I bought off of eBay for $23. It still looks like it's shootable (everything is straight, no cracks or visible damage) but it looks like it's seen it's share of bowhunting seasons.

The finish on the riser is really poor; someone drilled a series of holes (not all the way through) in what I assume was an attempt to attach a sight or a bowfishing setup. And the arrow rest rug (I think that's what it is called) is totally gone. The limbs look pretty good, some scratches here and there but I think they'll clean up nicely with some polishing.

I was planning on filling in the holes with wood putty, lightly sand down the original finish from the riser before refinishing it, and find some new material to replace the missing rest rug. Then I realized that I have no prior experience restoring bows (heck, restoring anything!) and started looking for people who might know what they're doing.

Does anybody have some suggestions on how I should proceed? I'm not interested in having someone else do it-- I could live with bow as is, but I'd like to see what I can accomplish on my own in my own free time.

Thanks!

[tpoof]

Looks like that $23 ebay bow is going to give you some finishing experience!
I would say not to use any stripper when removing the finish, you don'y want to delaminate your limbs! Just go slow, use progressivly finer sanding paper then pick a stain you like, then a finish, ie:poly urethane, tru oil, whatever you like.

I had a old recurve that had lime green limbs that were all chipped up, so I painted them with flat black acrlyic paint and it looks good and is still lasting some 5 years later! Don't let fear hold you back! Good luck!

Oh yeah, on those holes, if they are big enough to get a small piece of wood in there(dutchman)do that with some epoxy, better weather proofing :)