Preview pic

[RyanY]

Marc, I initially thought I would need to use leather or some other more pliable material since the belly part was not very flat. I remeasured the thickness and figured I had enough to flatten it out with my band saw. I was able to build up the handle today and it looks like I got a good fit with the other pieces of wood so it should hold up. Any opinions on how I should go about sinewing the bow?

[artcher1]

Just me personally, but I won't sinew that design. You got to really stress sinew to get any work out of it and with this design I believe you would have to go WAY beyond your intended draw length to accomplish that. Sinewing is just going to slow that design IMO.........Art

[Marc St Louis]

See this build along that I did several years ago http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,18701.0.html.  Try to get at least 5" of reflex before laying the sinew down, that will make it a bit more difficult to tiller but will make the sinew work harder.  That length of bow should work fine but you could shorten it even more with a sinew back

[RyanY]

Thank you for the link Marc. When you say 5" of reflex do you mean setback as well? Also I was thinking about how I could strategically place the sinew with more of it on the inner and mid limb area since that's where most of the work will be done. If I go shorter, how much more do you think I could take off? Going for 55#@28" with this one.

Art, The billets have a decent crown as well and with keeping more sinew in the working area and keeping narrow, stiff tips I think it'll do just fine. We'll have to see though. 

[blackhawk]

I agree to adding more reflex if sinewing. It'll make the sinew do its work better and put more stress to it. I didn't check the link Marc posted,but you can reverse brace it and sinew it. I've done this,and its kinda hairy reverse bracing it,but it works,and I left it braced like that for a month while the sinew dried.


Edit: just checked the link and saw he did it the same way. I didn't see how long he left it braced and how many times and when he twisted the dowel to further raise the reverse brace height and backset.

[artcher1]

I seldom discourage anyone from trying something new, cause that's how we learn. I know the one R/D bow that I sinewed, it's back was used to repair a hickory static ............Art

[RyanY]

Built up the handle so time for a few more pics. You can see how theres a little snakeyness to it. The handle is about 1.5" wide and tapers to 5/8" tips so i think i have plenty of wood to work with. Also there is about 3.5" of deflex before the limbs sweep up to about 4.5" of reflex. I think I put in a bit too much deflex but I figure the sinew will add some as well. Thoughts, suggestions or questions? Thanks for looking.