BOW STRING JIG

[RikJohnson]

A couple of weeks ago, I did a week-long paddle-trip up and down the Colorado River, living out of my kayak.
When I got home, I found that a windstorm had hit Tucson and damaged my boat-barn. So I've been rebuilding the thing and added a 3' extension for my longer kayak. In so doing, I removed my older make-shift shelves and replaced them with a set I received as payment for a job I did for _Cavewoman_ comic books.

All of which is irrelevant other than as I was dragging the old shelves to the curb, I noticed that the scrap frame I had used for the shelves was aluminum channel!
I thought about it and woke up in the middle of the night and rescued the channel.

yesterday, i found some scrap wood and cut a few pieces, then found an old fiberglass tent pole, a couple bolts and washers and in a very short time, had made a bowstring making jig from .. well junk! 100% Free! It even looks halfway decent!

Basically, you do not need to spend a lot of money to make gear and such, just some imagination and an eye for "what can I dowith this?" or "I need *** so what do I have that will work?".

Note that swords are a different matter<g> though I DID buy a rusty antique axe-head for $3 at a yard sale and with a disc-grinder and a bit of time and work, produced a decent period-looking hatchet!

I am making a new gambison and yesterday pulled the ventral seam to add buttons. I had some brass buttons I liked but brass is shiny so I painted them black and sewed them on... then forgot about it until later when I realized that I had some scrap leather left over from a canteen project and cut that into leather button-hole-flaps! Once i put elbow pads on, it will be finished as I also added another 8" to my hood. Still need to cut the boots to look less modern then my new ranger garb will be done.

stil lworking on the pack but everything else is done, including cotton-&-wax fire-starters!
Ok, i have flint-&-steel but want to make a bow-drill as my flintknapping skills suck!