Exploding asian bow.

[Prarie Bowyer]

There is a reason they make them from sinew and horn or fiberglass. 

Learned that today.

[blackhawk]

Any pics and some more explanation on the materials used and its specific design wood be nice ....it might help save someone from repeating your mistake...and maybe you can get some help on how to modify your design...I have seen all wood/boo laminates configured into a somewhat of a Asiatic horn bow,but they take quite a bit of set and don't hold the reflex like a "true" horn bow

[Prarie Bowyer]

Got mad and sawed it all up and put it in the trash can.

Syahs were say 6" tall or so?  45% from flat.  Back was flat with 2" of back set glued in.

Bamboo backed bamboo and hickory.  First hickory explosion.  Forget the length.  I basicaly copied  a kassai bow but made it a tad longer (2") for saftey sake.

The plan was to make a few and make them increasingly shorter till one broke and call that all wood threshhold.

Meh . .  . not my favorite bows to be honest.

[james parker]

Pb,, even  if composite horn bows are made correctly they can fail,, sometimes when they fail it is very catastrophic, it is possible if one limb breaks the other limb can  can go back beyond its reflex- unstrung position and cause bodily harm,, even the best horn bow maker has failures and breakage, matter of fact, the best bow makers ever,had their share of broke bows,,

[PatM]

You would have no problem with a sinew backed replica of a Kassai. No need to make siyahs so sharply angled though. As James says, any bow can break.

[dragonman]

even the strongest of woods will never behave like horn and sinew, bamboo comes the closest, but you cant get any where near the reflex in a all boo bow as a horn bow, well maybe you can, but the fibres will be destroyed and the bow only good for looking at. Short highly reflexed bows need to made of horn or sinew ( or fibreglass) , I found out the hard way too

[PatM]

Might want to check out some of the bows in American Indian Archery by Laubin and take note of his Osage Turk before definitively saying that. Many short wood and sinew bows retain high reflex and plenty of true composites sag like old bedsprings after hard use.

[toomanyknots]

Almost nothing new that we do ever works perfectly the first time, and the most rewarding things don't work till the 100th time. No one can just pick up a paint brush, and just say "I am going to paint a famous masterpiece". No one can just pick up a violin and say "I am going to compose a virtuoso piece of music." You just have to keep at it. My advice would be to figure out what went wrong, and try to correct it. Maybe a couple more inches for safety. Maybe more width and less thickness. Maybe try different woods?

[Prarie Bowyer]

I dn't realy have access to to Osage (despite being sorrounded by it none of it is mine).  If there is a 2nd in the terms of ideal woods it's Hickory. 

If the hickory breaks I'm guessing I violated the golden ratio (limb width, length, thickness, and curvature). 

I could tinker with it a bit ... shorten the syhas... lower their angle take the back curve out and try again.  I may .. but Ihave other stuff I want to try first.  Pluss I'm hoping to get a sellable bow out before the holidays.  I on'y did that because they seem so popular.  Personaly I like a long bow.  R/D is my favorite.  maybee a bendy handle recurve.