Penobscot double bow.

[Bowman]

Here is another piece of power. Penobscot 70#-26". A real bastard. :-)




:-)

[skyarrow]

Looks good but where is the full draw pic 

[Bowman]

:-) I will post a new picture later. This bow got a lot of compression trouble, and I have finished a new main bow in these days. This bow turned up with more power than expected. I will build another one, longer and with a more smooth drawforce. :-)

[JLoranger]

Gorgeous! What kind of wood is she? I have been wanting to make a penobscot for a while now and have only last week found the right stave for it. Will be my winter project I think. Any tips or words of wisdom unique to this style of bow?

[Adam]

That's really a cool bow!  Is there a trick to stringing it?

[Bowman]

Thanks. :-) I'ts hickory with leater dye.  Maybe the best wood for a bow like this. But elm and osage must be ok. The bow is easy to string. There is a "buildalong" for a bow like this on this forum. Just search for the "penobscot bow" I will build another one in elm or hickory, longer limbs and with less power. :-)

[wally]

I've studied the Penobscot bow history and built a couple of bows. There are several versions but the more usual one, I find usually stacks.
My theory and only my opinion, is that the the secondary strings only get power from a slight movement of the front bow, then the string is in tension or being stretched, hence the stacking. It really acts more like a cable backed bow but with a stick in the middle of the cable.
Don't get me wrong I love these bows even though I know they are an 'invention' from about 150 yrs ago.
I've experimented and the only way I found to relieve stack is to strongly recurve the small bow so that it changes the string angle thereby letting the small bow move more.
My last one was about 40lb on the long bow (elm) and hooking up the small bow (hawthorn) increases it to about 52lb.
Advantages are you can adjust the poundage of the bow, but why would you need to? I could've made an elm bow of 52lb, and I only made a penobscot 'cos I'm fascinated by them

[Bowman]

I build this bow because I like the design. I don't know much about the benefits with a design like this. Marc St. Louis said something interesting about these bows in another thread. He say that these bows take less setback if they are designed properly. Thanks for your comments. I think I will build the next one in osage.

:-)

[BL]

It seems that the stack coming from the extreme string angle on non-recurved front bows (althought I would think it would also apply with recurved) could be alleviated by affixing the front strings by the handle and having them run taught over a groove at the ends of the front bow.  I recall seeing some examples of this previously doing some google hunting.  I would also think that since you're reducing the high stack forces of the string being stretched straight, that it will help the compression issues as well.  Overall, more balanced.

Here's one from a PA thread.  Check the pictures on the lower half of page 3.

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=2259.30