Other than buying turned knobs, this is all the kit consists of. I went with the royal blue string.

I printed a couple copies of the plans from their website on legal paper. 

I've had this chunk of 8/4 sapele for a few years and every now and then I take a chunk out of it for a special project. I have the parts sketched out on the board to get the most out of my stock. This job will require a bit of resawing to get the final pieces, but that's OK.

I take it over to the bandsaw to rip the board I need. I use the bandsaw because it's going to have a smaller kerf, thus saving some of the board.

I then use my panel saw to crosscut the board free.

 This is all that's needed for the whole bow saw. 

The first thing I do is cut the pieces for the handles so I can get the brass rods epoxied in. 

These are the 2 handles.

I use my center finder to mark center lines on the two blanks.

And then take it over to the drill press and drill out the 1/4" hole 1" deep for the rods.

I mix up some epoxy.

And stick the brass rods in and clamp them for a few hours to make sure they wont move.

To get the parts out of this thick stock, I take it over to the table saw and resaw it.

Giving me the 2 arms.

Next I cut it to length.

And smooth it with my number 3.

Using some super 77, I attach the template.

My board was still a little wider than the template so I used my no 62 to bring it down to the width of the paper template.

For the mortises I drilled them out using the same 1/4" drill bit in the drill press.

I transferred my lines to the second piece instead of attaching a separate template to it. If I were to do a second bow saw, I would probably just attach a template to it to make sure everything is where it needs to be, but I really didn't run into any issues.

I used my chisels to square up the mortises.

Next up I glue the side template on and begin shaping.

I cut the top curve, taped the piece back on and then cut the tapers from the top.

Next up I cut the bottom curves.

Now I have both arms cut, but very rough.

Next up I cut the 13 1/2" stretcher.

Mark the tenons and cut them with my hand saw.

The right side fits good inside the mortise, but the left side was too loose for my taste (it wouldn't hold its own weight) so I had to fix it.

I found a scrap piece of thin sapele and glued it on the tenon to make it thicker. After the glue dried I cut the tenon to the correct size.

To shape the arms I primarily used my spokeshaves (mainly the flat bottom because I cannot get the round bottom to not chatter if my life depended on it). I would use the random rasp but need to pick up some finer rasps for finer work. All of my rasps just chew wood up, leaving a lot of sanding.

This is the final outcome of the arm. I'm happy with it but with everything I make, would probably do a better job if I were to make another bow saw.

It's tough (for me anyways) to get 2 hand shaped pieces to look similar. I was happy to see they looked the same.

If you don't have a lathe, you can buy turned handles from Gramercy Tools, but I do so I decided to turn the handles.

It was at this point that I thought I screwed my first handle up. It was looking rough but I was able to save it.

One handle down, time to not screw up the other one...

Snug fit in the 1/4" hole.

Both handles came out better than expected. 

This is the toggle that I also turned on the lathe. It's supposed to taper down to 1/8". I didn't trust my bandsaw skills to cut the taper, and I sure as hell wasn't going to use my table saw, so I figured my best bet would be to just use my spokeshave. Now clamping this 5 1/4" piece was tough but I managed to rig up something to hold it so that I could put the taper on two sides.

I gotta say, I was really happy with how this came out.  I ended up tapering all 4 sides of the toggle because I felt it looked better, but that's just my preference. You may not agree.

After this shot was taken, I took the stretcher and shaped all 4 sides of it, giving it a soft bullnose round over.

For the finish, I wanted something quick and easy because it doesn't need a whole lot of protection. I sprayed two coats of shellac and will be following it up with a nice coat of wax applied with steel wool. I will give the shellac a few days to cure before waxing it.

Man I love the way sapele looks with finish on it.