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Toomanyknots, You have some good ideas but there are some problems. Pyramid limbs might take too much near handle set resulting in a lot of tip deflection."
Pyramid limbs are widest at the handle and therefor should take no set at all near handle, all set taken typically is outer limb. If you are getting set near the handle with pyramid bows, maybe you are having the same problem I have been having, which is due to just gluing a riser on a consistent thickness board. The fix is a 1 1/2" thickness fade right off the handle like it was a normal american longbow, at least 1 1/2" right off the handle, to ensure this does not happen as there is alot of stress right off the handle. With a thickness fade there should be no way set be should occurring right off the handle.
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A reflexed Molly design will not only put a lot of strain on the inner limbs but will also be laterally unstable."
The limbs should store as much energy as design and material will allow. Stability is one of the responsibilities of the craftsman (that being alignment) and has been proven to be more than possible with reflexed non working outer limbs billions of times the world over.
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I think you may be making a false correlation between strain and speed."
I think you are taking the "energy stored" I am referring to and calling it "strain".
The more energy stored in the limbs at brace = the more early draw weight. Strain, if you mean physical strain on the belly, compression wise, can be dealt with by:
Making limbs wider and thinner to get same weight but less belly stress (with a pyramid design I don't think this is that bad of an option)
Making bow's dimensions overall longer
Heat treating belly
Selecting the most dense compression strong piece of red oak? lol
Making levers longer, so as to make the working limbs work less when the bow is drawn as I was talkin bout in my previous post...
...thats all I can think of right now.
As for stability, I am sure you have never shot a grozer csaba or nomad bow, as per your account every bow that they sell would be unstable. As well as every hunnic/magyar bow every made. As well as many reflex deflexes. I would think that stability has everything to do with alignment and should be no big issue when construction is taken seriously.
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In order to keep stability manageable, levers will be kept too wide and are usually made to deep for optimal speed which the extra energy storage will not be able to overcome."
I don't understand, they are deep to be strong so as not to bend, strength is in thickness not width, so siyahs/levers can be less mass than a working limb by being deep and thin, the deep thickness allowing enough strength to remove mass on the sides on the levers/siyahs. Imagine trying to make the lever rigid and non working by adding width instead of thickness. It would take alot more mass. This is what makes mollegebets and holmegards so much faster as they have less mass on the outer limbs.
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no that was not a response directed to your previous post more of a general rule everyone needs to follow. Flight bows built mainly to break speed records rarely survive a few shots when shot with a 5 gpp arrow and I just wanted to make it clear that these bows are supposed to be built to be durable enough to be shot at least two hunting seasons as they will probably fall into the hands of a newbie. So rule of thumb build a bow that will be a good balance between durability and speed. I never said anything about having to build a "sub par" bow. You sir are putting words in my mouth that I did not say."
Totally didn't mean to, sorry if it came out that way. Point taken. Forgive me if I get a little worked up about bow makin...
@ Johnson: lol.
