Optimum cast

[toomanyknots]

  Just another opinion. I think it is hard to make a 50 elb really efficient with heavy dense woods. If you make them narrow enough they can get unstable. For practicing at 100 yards my choice would be 72" long, maple backed cherry. The cherry and maple are light enough that you can maintain some good width demensions. Maybe 1 1/4: wide with deep cross section. Make the belly only very slightly rounded, almost flat.

Oh yeah, but osage makes the best bow everytime!?! How can a denser 0.84 specific gravity wood not have the best cast everytime in a bow specifically designed with longer limbs! I can't fathom it! Blasphemy! 

(Edit: ...And after my snide comment, I recede back into my dark dirty workshop to glue up two more osage elbs, being the hypocrite I am,...)

[Badger]

  Osage will have the best outcome if you you compensate for the mass in your design. In the case of heavy woods more elyptical.

[Bearded bowyer]

Thanks everyone for brilliant feed back as usual!

The chap has a aiming method where he sights the target using the pile tip of the arrow, the bow I just made him is spot on for 80 yards, but he just cant adjust for 100......( Im not quite sure why.....maybe he should aim a little heigher )
His draw length is standard 28 and he seems to be able to handle is 63@28 really well.
The bow I made him is hickory/beech/lemonwood. about 72" NTN. full compass.
He wants a bow with better cast, rather than higher pondage. But I do have a selection of bows he could try upto 100lbs@28 to see if he can handle them.
What do you all think about.
1. Shorter
2. Different materials...( as has already been discussed. But will it make a huge difference?)
3. Higher poundage
4. All of the above.

Thanks again
Matt

[Del the cat]

Tell him to lower his anchor point...
Del

[bushboy]

I'm no flight shooter by any means ,I agree with mike that different lenght and weight. Arrows and del's advice to ajusting his anchor or notching point .

[Bearded bowyer]

Thanks
Anyone know where I can get sycamore in Cambridgeshire in the UK?
I want to try the maple sycamore and the maple cherry

[Marc St Louis]

100 yrds is not very far especially with a 60# bow.  I would go with Bamboo (thin), Maple and Yew, as long as the Yew is not full of knots.  Otherwise it would be Ipe for the belly.  No mention of draw length here but I would make the bow no more than 70" for a 30" draw and go up or down 2" for each 1" draw length difference

[Sidewinder]

I have no comment on the wood combos but one thing that will help increase cast is as little weight at the last third and tips as you can get away with. I was just reminded of this not long ago and tried it. It works.
The osage bow I am just finishing shoots faster than any I have made to date (and they were no slouches). The tips are also as narrow as I have done to date as well. Look at how narrow blackhawks pyramid molly's look and you will begin to get the idea. Don't know how that works on a trilam but its worth considering.   Danny

[Bearded bowyer]

Thanks sidewinder
you are absolutely right of course. Don't know why I didn't think of that.
Get rid of as much weight as possible in the tips= greater cast.
Thank you sir!
That's the problem with English longbows, people want big elaborate highly polished horn nocks, which just slow it down.....

So.......

The mass of the tips is important, have any of you looked in to the profile or is that too much knit picking?
Could always go for the golf ball depressions approach  I understand from a aeronautics professor it can help improve supersonic flight!
Matt

[bushboy]

I am starting to think that the less moving parts the better(less hysteria).I have made d bows,gull wings, ect .I think that stiff handled,static's,R/d's with stiff recurves and pyramid mollies store more energy due to less energy lost to friction as the bow begins to recoil and high early draw weight.I may be off base here ,but I can only report on where I'm trending.

[adb]

hysteria??

[toomanyknots]

hysteria??

lol I think he meant hysteresis. Here's a good thread on it: http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/13236/Hysteresis-in-Wooden-Bows-New-Data

[toomanyknots]

That's the problem with English longbows, people want big elaborate highly polished horn nocks, which just slow it down.....

I am very guilty of that, .

[JW_Halverson]

You know, bows running round like chickens with their nocks cut off!

If we substitute hysteresis for hysteria it makes a little more sense.  But I still like the idea of frantic bows all worked up and panic stricken!

[adb]

hysteria??

lol I think he meant hysteresis. Here's a good thread on it: http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/13236/Hysteresis-in-Wooden-Bows-New-Data

That's what I thought... butcha never know.