My Latest Bows

[Rich Saffold]

Figure its time to put up a bow or two. The top bow is 68" ntn.r/d longbow of ipe, yellow boo core and black bamboo. Trapezoid limbs
 with the bamboo tapered in from the ipe belly which is 15/16ths outside the fades. 65#'s@29", 16oz mass, 1/2" of net reflex after a hundred shots.
Will post a couple more pics after I finish the grip, and decide how shiny to finish it..It's going to the "Great White North" Ok Alberta

The second bow is Degame/local tonkin bamboo 39# bow made from pre-ban Cuban stock which came from Stemmler Archery, and I was fortunate to get a piece to make this bow for an 80 year old friend
 and competition target archer, who used to have a Stemmler bow as a youth. The wood which I was very fortunate to get was from one of our local talented bowmakers who
prefers to remain anonymous since his box might fill up with inquiries..Very nice wood, worth bribery to obtain..

[duffontap]

Very nice Rich.  I think I can see what you're talking about with the development of your tiller.  The limbs look very straight almost everywhere!  Beautiful bows.

    J. D.

[Gordon]

Very nice bows Rich. I'm building a bamboo backed lemonwood bow also and have been quite impressed with this combo.

[Ghost Dog]

Now that is an efficient tiller. Beauty.

[Jesse]

Very graceful bows. Excellent work

[Rich Saffold]

The grip on the degame bow is a bit blocky in appearance, but it's what the owner wanted and I thought it was rather comfortable.  I wanted to have as much of a working limb on this bow to make the draw as smooth as possible at 28". The owner recently took 3d in a New York City  Fita shoot with another one of my bows so at 80 he is still going strong. Every bowyer gets stoked when someone does good with their bows

Thanks for the kind words guys. Part of why I posted  was the tiller of these bows as we were discussing on the warbow forum. Also the limb shape of the Ipe bow which I will post a photo of this as well when I get a chance. I tried to combine all aspects of speed (low mass, r/d, bending the backing lams for glue-up, then bending them more when gluing to the belly)  into these limbs, but tiller for a  smooth no stacking draw. I have made several similar bows with good results so it was time to show one.

Rich-

[Pappy]

Very nice Rich,good job. :)He should be happy with that.
   Pappy

[Woodland Roamer]

Those are some very pretty bows Rich.

Alan

[Jesse]

I would love to see more pics and hear more how you made them. I think your tiller is excellent. I Think this style shoots much better than if you made it bend more circular in the outer limbs.

[DanaM]

Thanks for posting these, interesting tiller, most of the bend in the near handle area. Would this tiller work
with woods that aren't as strong in compression? I've never used or seen either ipe or lemonwood but I'm
assuming they have good compression qualities.
I love the idea of being 80 and still shooting, pretty awesome.

[markinengland]

Richard,
Thanks for posting those. Very elegant.

I would love to see more pics and hear more how you made them. I think your tiller is excellent. I Think this style shoots much better than if you made it bend more circular in the outer limbs.

Looking at the at rest picture and the full draw I can imagine that the bow limbs aren't actually working as much near the handle as it appears. The parts of the limb at mid and outer that appear straight are actually bending and being highly stressed. The near handle looks bent and stressed but may not actually be bending as much as it appears as they were deflexed to start with.
Mark

[Jesse]

I could be wrong Dana but I think while it looks like the bend is only by the handle its deceiving because there is a lot of power put in the glue joint on the outer limbs during glue up if they move a little its really a lot. If it were tillered to full circle the outer limbs would be doing too much. Thats my understanding I am interested to hear what Rich says about it.   I dont know how it would work with woods that are not good in compression. I would say not good  but I will let someone else try it. If I make a laminated or backed bow I use belly wood that is strong in compression but I am far far far from an expert opinion on this.
                                                                                                                              Jesse
                                                                   

[Jesse]

Mark you beat me to it. You posted while I was writing looks like we agree.

[DanaM]

Thanks, Ive only tried one laminated bow, it died an ugly death
I think I get what your saying though, it will be interesting to
see what Richard has to say.

[Hillbilly]

Nice bows, Rich. How does the degame compare to the ipe for belly wood?