Hi fellow leatherwallers, here's another restoration I've been working on lately...

And last ones to show the fade outs and laminations in the limbs

If anyone wants me to, I can post the other pictures individually so they can be seen more clearly, sorry about the quality but I can't upload if too big

Very, very nice.

I realize now that the text I uploaded is hardly readable so here goes again, hopefully better

A lot of nice pictures, this last one must have been midnight no flash

Well that didn't work... Here goes copied straight up:

Restoration – 1960/61 Fasco Phantom Pistol Grip – Ser # 8259 – 70” / 40#

Any model in Fasco's Phantom line of recurves has always been one of my Holy Grail bows so when I came across this 40 pound Psitol grip on Ebay about 5 months ago I jumped right on it. As with most of the bows I buy off Ebay, this one was also a restoration project.

It was structurally perfect, no holes, no delamination, no splits, cracks or stress fractures, just whole. The finish was worn, cracked and flaking and there was a piece of electrical tape around the window and shelf which surely would leave residue and possibly peel off the finish underneath.

Considering I would have to strip, sand, sand and sand to get it back to wood and glass I made an offer to the seller which he happily accepted (never thought I would get it for what I offered).

After I got it, it sat for quite some time untouched until recently when I started the whole process of bringing it back to life.

When I've posted my restoration processes in the past, I usually go into detail step by step, this time I'm going to try to keep it much simpler.

After scraping all the old finish off, I wet sanded to 1500 grit and wiped down with soapy water. I always used Rust oleum Ultra Cover 2X but this time I tried one of their satin clear wheel spray paint. I will be using it from now on. Much harder finish than the other.

The main difference apart from finish product choice is that I did not sand the final coat like I usually do. I wanted to try something different and leave a smooth yet “bumpy” finish as the last layer of spray. I did so by spraying from about 3 feet and creating a mist in the air.

I like the end result almost as much as my usual wet sanding to 2500 grit although the wood doesn't show as well or as nice.

Decals and specs were gone during the scraping and sanding of the old finish but the serial stamp that reads <8259> is still, faintly, there. Last thing I did was add a leather shelf and built out strike plate. The string on it is for another 70” bow, so the nock point is not right, brace height is 8.5”. I need to built a proper string for the Fasco.

So how come you didn't restore the decal and nomenclature?

Stuart, they were in bad state as they were and not worth rescuing. Part of the finish flaking off was also peeling half the decal and the other half was almost gone

And, as I've said other times I've restored old bows, I don't really care if the decals or written specs remain or not. I like the purity of a bow with nothing on it but a string. I keep a arecord of the specs else where. When I get bows that don't need much of a refinish, I just clean and polish them and those get to keep that info intact

For example out of all my bows, the top four excluding the Osage selfbow, were all stripped of their decals and writing in favor of a complete restore. The rest are as they came from the factory with a little TLC from my part

Well done Patrick, that Phantom looks fantastic!

Beautiful restore, pictures and explanation!

Thanks for sharing with us.

In my opinion taking the time to restore an old bow is one of my favorite things archery related to do other than shoot and hunt. Shooting, hunting and killing game with a bow I restored is a great feeling.

Wow! Beautiful bow, nice work. Love the super fine Fasco core laminations. How does it shoot?

Chuck, best shooter of the bunch, with the Palomar and Pearson 954 recurve in close seconds. Even nicer than my toelkes. Fast, quiet and I can shoot it all day and the next, being 40# and 70" long.

Wow! Nice work!

My Pistol Grip is a fine shooter, very smooth draw. The grip is a handful and takes some getting used to.

Nice job Patrick!

Great photos, Patrick and very nice job on the refinish! I've done a few refinish jobs myself and I know the amount of work it takes in sanding and removal of old finish.

Great job on your bow.

Patrick: Be aware satin finishes are never as hard as gloss finishes. If you want a satin finish do it as an overcoat of a gloss finish.

Very nice work.

Bob

Very nice,, thanks for sharing.

Nice that is sweet. Thanks for letting us get a look at it....

Glad that You brought that BOW BACK! AMAZING JOB!

Bob, that's right about gloss being harder than the rest. In this case the satin was the last layer after spraying and sanding gloss previous layers. I should have mentioned that in my write up

Slick!

Envy…

TTT for Anthony... Hope it helps

Very nice

Very nice indeed, we'll done.

Now that rack needs a nice old FireDrake on it, Patrick!

I agree Kerry!

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