80" White Elm Warbow Build-along

[Cameroo]

Mike, you pretty much described exactly what Del does 

That is a smart way to do it! Sounds like it simplifies things quite a bit.

[toomanyknots]

I have a good little tool for making the fit perfect.
Get a chunk of something hard and drill a hole in with your bit a deep deeper than your finished intended depth of cone. Then get a tenon saw or similar and cut a slot into one side of the cone hole (the full length of it).
Then get a bit of sandpaper, insert it into the slot, pull a bit throught so it touches the other side of the hole.
Push onto your rough shaped cone and rotate. It then sands off the high spots until you have a perfect fit.
Easy peasy!

What I do is just shove a triangle of sanding belt into the horn itself and rub it on the bow tip to get it close. Than I take the sandpaper out and just rub the horn on the bow tip. The high spots will get rubbed and burnished, and look kinda shiny while the low spots will not get touched. So I will remove the shiny spots, and repeat until the horn fits good with no play. Man, I made some horn nocks for a guy recently. He was surprised that the hole in the horn was not "square". I told his I could not drill a square hole, and that it wouldn't work anyway. (the pictures of them clearly show a round hole anyway). He insisted that he usually buys horn nocks with square holes, from the man who makes horn nocks for 3riversarchery, who he says recently passed away and was his friend. I don't understand though, a horn nock with a square hole would not work? I tried to explain to him that an english longbow is not square. He said he wished I would of drilled the ends in a d-shape, so it would work with a d - cross section. (  ) I explained that a d - section bow is still round at the tip....    I made a video for him showing how I put the nocks on, and linked him to del's blog and a thread where I did some horn nocks. He still insisted that the english longbows he made would not work with the nocks because the nocks I sent him were drilled "circularly"... 

... Ok, I will stop going off topic. I think horn nocks are fun too once you get a hang of em. I use a straight taper, I feel like it doesn't matter too much also though. I think it makes tons of sense that they would of used the natural hole Cameroo, it would save so much production time.

[lostarrow]

I have a good little tool for making the fit perfect.
Get a chunk of something hard and drill a hole in with your bit a deep deeper than your finished intended depth of cone. Then get a tenon saw or similar and cut a slot into one side of the cone hole (the full length of it).
Then get a bit of sandpaper, insert it into the slot, pull a bit throught so it touches the other side of the hole.
Push onto your rough shaped cone and rotate. It then sands off the high spots until you have a perfect fit.
Easy peasy!

What I do is just shove a triangle of sanding belt into the horn itself and rub it on the bow tip to get it close. Than I take the sandpaper out and just rub the horn on the bow tip. The high spots will get rubbed and burnished, and look kinda shiny while the low spots will not get touched. So I will remove the shiny spots, and repeat until the horn fits good with no play. Man, I made some horn nocks for a guy recently. He was surprised that the hole in the horn was not "square". I told his I could not drill a square hole, and that it wouldn't work anyway. (the pictures of them clearly show a round hole anyway). He insisted that he usually buys horn nocks with square holes, from the man who makes horn nocks for 3riversarchery, who he says recently passed away and was his friend. I don't understand though, a horn nock with a square hole would not work? I tried to explain to him that an english longbow is not square. He said he wished I would of drilled the ends in a d-shape, so it would work with a d - cross section. (  ) I explained that a d - section bow is still round at the tip....    I made a video for him showing how I put the nocks on, and linked him to del's blog and a thread where I did some horn nocks. He still insisted that the english longbows he made would not work with the nocks because the nocks I sent him were drilled "circularly"... 

... Ok, I will stop going off topic. I think horn nocks are fun too once you get a hang of em. I use a straight taper, I feel like it doesn't matter too much also though. I think it makes tons of sense that they would of used the natural hole Cameroo, it would save so much production time.

I have a lovely tapered reamer that works great on horn and antler I also have a tapered tenon cutter that matches.  Just thought I`d throw it into the mix !    
     

[toomanyknots]

I have a lovely tapered reamer that works great on horn and antler I also have a tapered tenon cutter that matches.  Just thought I`d throw it into the mix !    

Honestly not trying to go off topic, but can you "ream" a tapered square shaped hole with these in horn? Maybe that was how my guy got his square nocks made? If you want you can send me the answer in a PM, I don't wanna go off topic anymore and distract from Cameroo's outstanding elm warbow build,  . Tiller is looking very nice!

[Cameroo]

I made my custom spade bit (ground down a 5/8 bit), cut my horns, and drilled them out.  Not sure if I should be using these though.  There are some visible de-laminations, and I'm not sure how deep they will go.  I was going to glue them on and then shape them, but now that I see this, I think I'll do the bulk of the shaping first, in case they turn out to be unusable.

[WillS]

They do look a tad risky! You never know though.  Make sure you glue them onto the bow with good quality runny superglue.  Unlike epoxy, superglue can penetrate right into the fibres of the horn and gives a really solid bond.  That's my advice anyway, but I'm just a newbie! I was told to use superglue by a couple of very experienced warbow makers from the EWBS and I ignored it at first, until I had a nock delaminate along the grain on the tiller.  Superglue has been much kinder so far...

[toomanyknots]

I made my custom spade bit (ground down a 5/8 bit), cut my horns, and drilled them out.  Not sure if I should be using these though.  There are some visible de-laminations, and I'm not sure how deep they will go.  I was going to glue them on and then shape them, but now that I see this, I think I'll do the bulk of the shaping first, in case they turn out to be unusable.

I wouldn't use those, just because you never know how far the checks will go. If you PM me your address I'll send you some horn tips. And I use the gel kind of super glue, I don't like the runny kind at all, just my take though. The brand I use is gel loctite, I like it because it works and you can shape the horns instantly. One thing that does suck about using super glue, is if it is really cold outside and you bump them on something, there is a chance they will come off. As super glue gets weak when it's cold, etc. I like it though.

[WillS]

I've never used the gel type.  In fact I don't think I've ever seen it in shops round here!  If I spot some I'll grab it, cos the runny stuff is fantastic (I use loctite also) but gets everywhere!!  Does the gel still penetrate the fibres of the horn properly?

[adb]

Hey, Cam... I have several nice cow horn tips. I don't do many, so if you want to come over and pick out a set, let me know!

[toomanyknots]

I've never used the gel type.  In fact I don't think I've ever seen it in shops round here!  If I spot some I'll grab it, cos the runny stuff is fantastic (I use loctite also) but gets everywhere!!  Does the gel still penetrate the fibres of the horn properly?

It works for me, also for overlays too. I'd be weary using the runny stuff personally.

[Cameroo]

Thanks for the offer Daniel (do you prefer Dan?), but since Adam offered some, I'll save you the cost of shipping and go pay him a visit.  I did some more excavating on these horns, and they're junk. Cracks all throughout, so I'll have to put the project on hold for the time being.  I'm working on a proper jig to make an endless loop string.  Can do some finish sanding too I suppose.

[toomanyknots]

Thanks for the offer Daniel (do you prefer Dan?), but since Adam offered some, I'll save you the cost of shipping and go pay him a visit.  I did some more excavating on these horns, and they're junk. Cracks all throughout, so I'll have to put the project on hold for the time being.  I'm working on a proper jig to make an endless loop string.  Can do some finish sanding too I suppose.

Okee Dokey, offer still stands if you change your mind, I can drill them out for you if you want too. Dan or Daniel is fine, I actually go by my last name though (tidwell). I bought some horn like that before, that was all cracked up. I bought some too recently that was beautiful, but then after a few weeks it started to crack too on the ends. I think because it was freshly cut. Someone from highland horn told me you need to seal the ends of the horn when they are fresh with boiling wax and let the horn season for a year or so, and then they will be stable and not crack anymore.

[adb]

Cam popped over to my shop this afternoon with the big elm warbow. It's impressive. Early draw weight is really high. Too much for me to draw and let down that's for sure. I got him some bits of solid horn for nocks, and I'm guessing we'll see it all prettied up very soon. Now we just need the winter to go away, so I can watch him shoot it!

[Marc St Louis]

It's very nice.  Elm though is not as elastic as Yew and you may see some chrysals start to develop in the outer limbs in time.  That's why I prefer a more circular tiller with any white-wood

[Cameroo]

I finally got the nocks shaped and just have to buff them up some.  Just wanted to share a little fix I discovered.  I got a little greedy filing the string grooves and exposed some wood.  I the OCD side of me could not bare to look at it, so I did some excavation with a scalple to cut the really thin part out and then colored the wood with a black sharpie.  I filled in the hole with a few layers of CA glue, and then cleaned it up with some fine sandpaper.  It turned out pretty good, you can't even really see the patch unless you know it's there.

Picture after removing the really thin part:



And here it is after the sharpie/crazy glue treatment: