Experimental bow - English Ash, 95# @ 32" finished pics.

[WillS]

I've just finished working on a bit of a bizarre little bow, thought I'd post it in here!

It's English ash, and it was basically an experiment for a few reasons.  I started roughing the stave out months ago, in the hope of getting something around 110# for an upcoming EWBS shoot.  As I got the thing down to bow dimensions, I came across a load of wind shakes, cracks and long splits running along one side of the upper limb.  Looked like this, basically.



I posted the pic on Facebook for people to see and post their comments/thoughts, and essentially the general consensus was "scrap the thing, or just use it as practice but wear a hard hat when you first draw it up..."

So I kept going 

The cracks and splits were drowned in superglue, some big ones with epoxy and clamped together, and the roughing out finished until I had a regular warbow stave full of superglue.  It was more or less 99% glue and 1% solid wood at this stage I think.  The bow went into the corner while I did some house decoration, and eventually got forgotten about. 

The EWBS shoot approached (this weekend just gone) and on the Thursday I decided to pull out the ash stave and see what I could do.  There were now two challenges in my head - make this superglue bow last at 32" of draw, and achieve it by the Friday afternoon when I was leaving for the shoot.  Friday afternoon arrived, and Superglue Bow was surviving at 110# at 32" draw.  Insanity.  I've never made a bow this quickly, or met a target weight so neatly.  I was dead chuffed.  Sadly, in my haste the tips were hinged, and there was a whopping great chrysal in one limb tip but at least it survived!

After the shoot, I did a bit more work on it, and it's now a very nice looking bow I think.  It's weight at the moment is 95# at 32", and there's been no heat treating etc yet.  I'll probably temper the belly with a heat gun for a bit to ease out some of the set (it was super humid while I was working on it, so it's sucked up some moisture) and ramp up the weight closer to 110, but overall I'm quite chuffed!

Here she is, I'll get some better shots of her once the horn nocks are on and the finish is applied etc.  Bear in mind this was a rush job, so the tiller isn't spot on.  Slightly too much movement in the middle and not enough at the tips but I'll fiddle with it while I shoot it in.  The right limb could do with easing a bit more as well, looking at it now.  Although it looks better in the hand.  Anyway, Impossi-Bow, or "Superglue Bow."

[JW_Halverson]

Good lord, you are as daft as Del! 

Frankly, I am amazed and impressed that you got that thing to full draw at ANY weight after seeing the stave with checks and all.  Excellent combination of luck, skill, and experience, sir!  Congratulations!

[WillS]

I don't think it's a combo at all - just 100% pure, unadulterated luck.  Thanks though 

The daftness must be a British thing.  That or I can't afford to throw out staves!

[JW_Halverson]

I don't think it's a combo at all - just 100% pure, unadulterated luck.  Thanks though 

The daftness must be a British thing.  That or I can't afford to throw out staves!

If that is the case, then about 500 folks from North America have been exposed from one of the world's worst carriers....Del the Cat!

[PatM]

Keep the heat away from it. The superglue and epoxy will start emitting noxious fumes and undoubtedly break down.

[WillS]

That's a very good point.  I was thinking about doing it anyway and just re-doing all the glue, as none of it is holding anything together structurally, just stopping the thing coming apart at full draw.  However, I think you're right - I'll leave the tempering!

[PatM]

I was thinking more for your health rather than the health of the bow.

[Del the cat]

Well done.
I sometimes think these bonkers, have a go, nothing to loose bows teach us more about bow making than the painstaking work with a near perfect stave.
I think it allows us to give free rein to our feel and our instincts, a bit like snap shooting vs holding at full draw for 10 seconds.
It's all good experience for when you find a minor shake in an otherwise perfect stave, you can shrug and spit in it's eye 
Nice one.
Del

[JW_Halverson]

Del is absolutely right.  But that advice ONLY applies to a bowyer with experience.  If you don't have the requisite road miles under your saddle, you are operating totally blind and on guesswork.  But with experience, you are working out solutions where you have a grasp of causes and effects. 

The juggling/theatre group The Flying Karamozov Brothers has a routine called "Jazz".  The individual members of the group come out on stage one at a time.  The first exhibits a basic 3 item juggle.  It's called Discipline 1.  The next involves a variation on it called Discipline 2, and so forth until they have 5 Disciplines shown to the audience and the audience understands how each is built on the previous.  They explain that you may NOT break the Disciplines or things fall out of the air and that's not interesting....well, not after the first time!  Then all 5 come out on stage with Lord knows what all....and they begin to break the rules of all 5 Disciplines.  Stuff is flying thru the air at random, guys end up juggling way too many disparate objects until they can foist them off on someone else, stuff is falling to the ground and being brought back into play in the most amazing ways, and the audience is well and truly blown away by their Mastery.  None of which can done without knowing the Disciplines.

I apply this philosophy to everything.  But especially bow making. Until you understand the rules and why they are the rules, you cannot exploit the exceptions to the rules. 

I reiterate, Will, this was luck, skill, and experience along with a touch of Jazz.

[WillS]

I love that, thanks JW.  If only it was bloody shorter so it could go in a Signature...

Incidentally, one of my favourite albums to have on while working on bows is We Want Miles, featuring the unparalleled Mike Stern on guitar.  It's something I try and get all my students to listen to when they ask how to sound like they're playing "out of the box" without losing sense of the key or timing.  So perhaps there's some jazz (said with jazz hands) in this bow, as it was playing while I was soaking the thing in superglue.

The bow has horn nocks fitted now, and I'm just in the process of doing the final width taper to the tips.  It's looking really nice in the hand now, just a shame about the amount of set it took.  I think along with the humidity a large factor was in my aiming for 110# at 32" and tillering it to meet that weight, but eventually having to knock it down to around 95#.  Still, it'll make a good training bow.  Just won't be setting any records

[Del the cat]

BTW.. how long is it? 
Del

[WillS]

It started out at 83" and now it's 77" nock to nock.  It's 40mm wide in the centre by about 30" with a fairly flat belly.

[Cameroo]

Nice job with a sketchy piece of wood Will.  Hopefully it will go on to live a long and productive life!

[WillS]

Here's some photos of the finished bow.

The tiller at full draw has been tweaked slightly, to bring the right limb round to take some movement away from the middle, and I took some wood from the sides of the tips to ease them round as well, but I can't be bothered to go and take another full draw shot, as I hate doing it in general and it looks quite a bit different in the hand so it's still not particularly accurate.  However, here's a pic of the terrible hinged, whip-ended tiller to show just how bad it was, before piking.   

Note, there are horn nocks on this first tiller shot.  They had to be cut off, drilled out (not easy...) and re-glued.  I always glue my tips on with superglue, and this has convinced me to keep doing that - these things did NOT want to come off.  Not even direct heat made this glue release.

Anyway, here's how NOT to make a bow...



And here's how she looked before tips went on, and tiller was tweaked



Here's the bow at brace



Horn nocks




The back, with the cambium left on and two coats of Danish Oil to bring out the colours slightly



The depth of the belly at the handle



And the tips of the bow



This was a lot of fun, and as Del said above it's really nice sometimes being able to make "bonkers" bows, as it lets you unleash things you've read or heard about but don't want to try on nice pieces of wood, and there's nothing like the satisfaction of seeing a bow that should NEVER succeed reaching 32" of draw length.