Mollegabet based on Half Eye's Evil Baby Bro

[violet313]

Hi all, first post & first bow but i hope that won't deter any constructive criticism lol,,

Inspired by Half Eye's Mr. Mollegabet's 57" Evil Baby Brother, i decided i would attempt to build one as a birthday present for my teenage daughter.

I went to the timber-yard and for £20 came away with one excellent looking stave of straight-grain Ash and a second stave of Maple. the Maple was an off-cut that i got for £4. It had some run-off that was impossible to entirely avoid for the desired 57" length and a 2" max width.

The plan was that i would practice on the Maple & once i'd broken it, i would then get to work on the Ash with at least some degree of experience.

Apparently though, Maple is very forgiving because despite my best efforts it refused to break and instead i found myself becoming steadily less care-free & haphazard and increasingly tense & careful.

So now the hideously scary tillering is complete and,, i appear to have a working mollie, yay!

Specs:

Unbacked Maple
Current physical weight of bow is 22 oz.
N2N length is 57"

1 x 4"        grip
4 x 1.75"  fades throughout
2 x 13"     working inner limb
2 x 10"     static outer limb

working limbs:
2" wide at inner fade, tapering to 1.75" at the outer fade.
limb thickness is a very scary 10mm at the inner fade tapering out to about 8mm.

static limbs:
currently 1" deep x .75" wide at fade tapering to .75" deep x .5" wide at the nock.
Of course, i plan to lose more wood here.


Draw weight: 45# @ 28"

1:1 stack:  5# every couple of inches.

Tillered her up to 30" (where she pulls 50#) which is 4" beyond my comfortable draw and 6" beyond my daughters.

Set of 2.25" right after coming off the tiller tree for the above draw weights; then settling to 2" after a couple of hours unbraced; &under 2" unbraced overnight.

I calculated the set by placing the back of the unbraced bow on a flat surface & then measuring the perpendicular distance from the back side of the bow at the limb nocks to the flat surface.

There is about a 1/8" difference at the nock in the set of the stronger limb.


Notes:

There is some slight propeller twist in the limbs.
By propeller twist i mean helical, around the longitudinal axis:
Looking down the bow from one nock to the other, the left side of the nearest working limb is closer to the string while the right side is further from the string; vice versa for the other limb (ie: you see the same thing no matter which end of the bow you look along).

I think this is caused by the run-off in the grain or it might even be due to my crazy asymmetric S-shape grip?

i couldn't really find a lot of infos on dealing with this kind of twist. &i didn't fancy heat treating it since unbraced, there was no twist evident.

Anyway i tillered away much of the twist by removing wood from the belly on the side of the limb that was furthest from the string. This was scary and felt very unnatural. & i had to do a fair bit of sanding before making any noticeable difference. As mentioned above, it gets as thin as 8mm at the outer fade on the stiff side of each limb. is that scary? ~it certainly feels scarily thin to me. & while there is some twist still remaining (nothing noticeable until it's pulled over 20" & plenty less than 30 degree), i am reluctant to remove any more wood & just wonder if it's actually *not good* to fight the natural tendency of the wood too much?? (I mean this kind of twist doesn't seem to affect the string which still runs N2N along the middle of the bow ok)

Maybe if i'd been brave enough to stick to Half Eyes' guidelines; narrower (& hence deeper) working limbs of 1.75" tapering to 1.5", then the propeller twist would not have manifested?

Also there are one or two micro-knots that caused some stiffness. i didn't drill them out though; again just compensated via tillering ~was that a bad idea?

~

I have nick-named her Boudicca but i think my daughter prefers David (for some reason).

Anyway, many thx to everone who has contributed their infos/skills/insights to this site and others! Esp:

Here: Half Eye & these threads:
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=17521.0.html
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=33491.0.html
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=17500.0.html
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,31731.0.html

Also:
BackyardBowyer: http://www.youtube.com/user/BackyardBowyer
PrimitivePathways: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eWDgNrLYps
BoarriorBows: http://www.youtube.com/user/BoarriorBows
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/49654/Ashbacked-Sycamore-Mollegabet#.Ulv3tCPxvpR


All v.inspirational stuff (;

[half eye]

all sounds real good but ya got to know yer gonna have to post some pics, don't ya? I for one would to see her. I like the Mollegabets very much and don't think they are too difficult to make. It sounds like you found that out for yourself, and that you like the design as well

PS: please post in the Bow section so more folks can get to see her.
rich

[violet313]

lol, thought no one would ask (= ~will be happy to post pics,, but raining gloomy and horrid here in the UK right now, so i will try to get around to a photo-shoot tomoz.. (btw hahahaha there'd be zero chance of getting my daughter to pose immediately,, will need to wear her down for a week or so with constant nagging & maybe a bribe of some sort lol)

Since this is my first build, i really have no idea how easy or hard it is. but what i can say is that it did not take me a couple of hours lol.,, spent probably more time just staring at her from every conceivable angle, than actually tillering; went from rasp to glass/flint to 50-grit sand-paper; & i think, most importantly, expected to get the tillering wrong so compensated by initially working to 55# and having longer static limbs giving me about N2N 60" off the starting-block. 

Big thx for taking an interest Half Eye,, as said you have been my main inspiration. & yes i do really love the Mollegabet design. i now have a more profound respect for our not primitive ancestors. ~am looking forward to knapping-up some lovely flint arrow-heads (hands only just healed from the learning-curve involved in that dark art lol)  yay! 


Edit:
Right-ho. The pics can be found here

Like you said, i put it in the Bows section,,

[bubby]

hell of a bend you got there, first or fifty, great job,

[BowEd]

Yesserie you got everything out of that one you could.Good job.

[violet313]

yay big thx for the kind words guys!  ~it really means a lot. i put a bag of effort into this; no tears but plenty of sweat && a touch of blood lol. in any case i couldn't have done it without all you good folk sharing your insight on the iwebs,,

So really just standing on the shoulders of giants    as it were,,

(=

 btw, in the OP there are a couple of questions i raise regarding the propeller twist; i really struggled  to find any in-depth infos here so if anyone has any handy hints i'd be v.glad to hear them!

Also, i wonder: just how rounded dare i make her edges as i pretty her up?