First bow project is semi-laminated

[bambam]

New guy here, first day. Been considering making my own bow and joining here for some time. I am lucky to have a shop specializing in fancy-exotic wood in my neighborhood. Pickup up a 9 foot piece of red oak with perfect grain exactly 1.5 inches wide and .5 inches thick. Cut off 74 inches roughed up both it and the 34 inch left over with a rasp and glued them center to center with tightbond III. The handle will be a piece of Ipe I have on hand. The 34 inch piece will be tapered from the handle to the ends with a Japanese mill tooth file. Going to back it with rawhide. Not sure exactly what style of bow this will end up but starting with a pyramid design then see what is what when tillering starts. Suggestions please. This is my first bow project but I am a wood carver and fancy leather worker so have tools and skills.

[bambam]

Don't know how" primitive "this project is but trying to not blow up my first bow. Comments appreciated, if it sounds crazy say so. Also managed to find a perfect grain 1x2 inch grain hard maple piece 6 ft long on the same buying trip, saving for later. It was just tooooo good to leave for someone to make furniture.

[GB]

I've only made one pyramid bow, so take my response with a grain (or a whole spoon full) of salt.  Depending on what draw weight you're trying for, I don't know if 1.5" will be wide enough.  I made mine from hickory and made it 2" at the fades for a 45#, 66" bow.  Then again, maybe the extra length of your bow will make the difference.  Hopefully someone who knows more about that style will chime in.
Your hard maple board sounds promising.  I finished a hickory backed hard maple board bow last month, 68" NTN and 45#.  It was the first time that I worked with maple and I really like that wood.  It's a very smooth shooter at that length, one of my favorites.

[bubby]

an 1 1/2" wide is realistically to narrow for a pyramid bow, I would suggest an alb similar to what Howard hill detailed in hunting the hard way, find the center and mark, go up 1 1/4" from center and mark then measure down 4"then measure 2" for fades make it 1 1/4" wide in this area, from the ends of the fades taper to 1/2" tips on the back and on the side the handle fade area make it 1" and strait taper to 3/8'at the tips I've also put a link to my pyramid bow build for future reference, that maple would make a great longbow as well as it to is a little narrow, make a great eastern woodland bow as well                                                                                                                                                                         http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,35312.0.html
heres a link to gawges site too a wealth of board bow knolledge their http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/

[bambam]

From looking at my bow collection a long fade like that with rawhide backing should produce a pretty strong bow. I was hoping for a 45 @ 28 after tillering. Forgot to mention I also have 2 nice looking servicewood staves of about 2 inches seasoning in the basement as the stuff is everywhere here. Lots of choke cherry to but it's too crooked for a 70 inch bow. If I wanted to make a 50 inch native style bow I would have lots of it available.

[bubby]

if you want to build some pyramid style bows get some wider boards as most of the whitewoods need at least 1 3/4" at the fades

[DarkSoul]

So you glued a 34" section onto the 72" core? Hm, interesting. ½" thickness would indeed have been too thin for a decent weight bow. But I'm not sure how this semi-laminate will turn out. My prediction is twofold:
- You might get compression issues where the 34" lam fades into the 72" lam. The belly lam will get so thin at a point, that it will buckle. That's what I'm guessing.
- It is absolutely crucial that you get a perfect thickness taper. You don't want a dip in the thickness at 35"-36", and you don't want a thick spot at 33"-34" either. A very gradual thickness taper is essential, but difficult to achieve with the current jump from ½" to 1".

I'm looking forward to the results though. Please prove me wrong, since I've never seen anyone make such a partly laminated bow.

[bubby]

Darksoul I've done a few of these partial belly lams, if he takes his time it will work, if the one inch to half doesn't make a smooth transition he can go to 3/4", just wanted him to have plenty of wood to work

[bambam]

bubby was 100% right. The 1 inch to 1/2 inch transition went perfectly thanks to my Japanese mill tooth file and a caliper. Learned about those files from wood carving. They are not like a rasp and when used properly remove material rapidly in strings. The bow is basic floor tillered and is bending properly. Now to put on the rawhide backing and build a tiller tree while it dries.

[bambam]

I'm declaring this bow a success. Fading the lamination together was no problem at all. Built a tiller tree and worked slowly with the tiller coming out bang on. Was hoping for 45 lb at 28 but it came out 40 lb. Haven't shot any arrows yet but took it full draw 50 times. It took a 1.5 inch set. Now on workbench with finish drying. Will post pics after shooting a bunch of arrows.

[paulsemp]

First mistake..... Be careful not to declare a bow a success until it has shot a few hundred arrows. That's so it doesn't hurt as bad if you run into problems. Also putting a finish on before shooting usually leads to redoing the finish.

[bubby]

Pauly is right it ain't a bow till you get a couple hundred arrows thru her, but we need to see pics

[bambam]

Forgot to mention the bow is a Howard Hill style. The finish I put on is called antique oil which is a penetrating stuff so no worries about it being spoiled by shooting the bow.

[bambam]

Took it shooting today. After 50 arrows the bottom limb had taken a noticable increase in bend. Shot 200 more and it did not change further. The tiller was easily evened out with sandpaper. The bow drew very smoothly and had little hand shock in spite of the fact I was using 420 grain arrows. My H Hill gets grumpy if the arrows are much under 500 gr. Can't seem to post pics. Cranked the camera all the way down but the files are still too large.

[DarkSoul]

Upload the pics directly from your camera (computer) onto www.tinypic.com
And then post the [ IMG]-link here.