Bendy handle question

[Academonicon]

Hey folks.  Up to this point, I've only done stiff handles, but I'm going to be putting bendy handles on a couple bows - one hickory flatbow about 1.75" at the fades, and one osage flatbow about 1.5" at fades.  My question is, with bows that are wider than 1-1.25" or so, is it safe to narrow the sides of the handle down in order to make a more comfortable grip and bring the arrow closer to the center-line, or does that risk the bow breaking at the handle since the handle is bending too?  How do you all handle this?

Thanks!

[PEARL DRUMS]

Sure, you can do that. If you study closely the pics of properly built bendy's you'll see where the handle narrows it also thickens. You just have to be wise and compensate as you narrow, draw and feel it work ALOT as you shape the grip. You don't want all the bend in your handle. That said, if your building the standard 56-60" bendy hickory bow? 1 5/8" is plenty wide. Remember your gaining usable bow by bending through the handle.

[Aaron H]

You can also tiller just the sides near the handle to narrow it further

[Academonicon]

Thanks!  The hickory bow is (I think) around 60", and the osage is around 55".  I was already planning to narrow the osage a bit, but I think I'll do it for the hickory too.  I recurved the hickory a little, but it's a working recurve, so I'm not concerned about it cutting back on the bendable inches.

[bowandarrow473]

1 1/4 or 1 3/8 along the limb should work well, you can narrow the grip to 1 1/4 on the 1 3/8 design and leave it the same on the other.

[jeffhalfrack]

This is good  stuff I have only built stiff handle bows as well,,,,is55" too short for hickory or ash?  Id love to try one some day,,,I like the lookz of a short bendy  with a flipy rest how do they compare to a 50#stiff at 68"this would be good for blind hunting ,,,,,,JeffW

[bowandarrow473]

You could do it at 26in draw but 28 would be in the upper limits,but I'm sure it has been done so go for it or go to 60 or so inches for safety and durability. I like bows above 62 or so inches as I feel that they shoot smoother for some reason, just what I think though.

[Josh B]

It can certainly be done.  The trick is to tiller it to bend slightly less from fade to fade than the rest of the bow to prevent excess set in the worst possible place.  Here's one that i did awhile ago. http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,28346.msg376564.html#msg376564
It's hard tell from the pic, but the handle area is considerably thicker and bends less than the limbs.  I tiller these like a stiff handle until I get to the last few inches of draw and then start working the fades back to the center of the handle to get that area bending.  Josh

[blackhawk]

Something that hasnt been said yet...

When u make a narrower handle on a bendy you need to make sure your fade transitions are smooth and NOT abrupt in any way....when i make them i lay out a 3"long fade,and make sure to really round your corners on the back out more towards the limb ends of the fades....this all helps keep the angle of violation going into the handle at an acceptable tolerance ...i just finished a short bendy thats 1 7/8" wide limbs with a ~1 1/4" wide handle...my fades are long and smoothly transitioned (and hemp wrapped reinforced) ...look at how the west coast tribes made there short bend in the handle paddle bows with significantly narrowed handles and such....same way...

[Academonicon]

Thanks for the advice, everybody.  I narrowed the handle sections a bit and left them thicker to compensate.  I'll also be sure to lengthen the fades some.
For the osage, I'm trying to bend the handle a bit to correct some poor alignment issues where the string is ending up about an inch from the center line and creating some twist problems, but I think I've got it in hand.

[Josh B]

I'm glad you pointed the fades out Chris.  That is important and I should have mentioned it.  The example I put up appears to be a quite abrupt transition.  In fact the actual fade is much longer.  I left it wide to get the sapwood/heartwood showing as much as I could purely for aesthetic reasons.  However I took steps to make sure the abrupt appearing transition was in no danger of splitting up the limb.  On the back, I trapped the sides at an angle for about 2 1/2" for a long transistion to the widest part of the limb.  On the belly side, I started leaving a crown in the center through roughly the same area where it thickened for the handle.  By doing this the strain is concentrated towards the center of the limb and the outside edges are not doing much of anything.  I normally wouldn't do it this way, but as i said I was thinking of aesthetics.  In the top pic you can almost make out the trapping of the back.  I got out my crayons for the bottom illustration to attempt to show the cutaway profile of the transitions from limb to handle.  Josh

[DC]

Just to be sure, the belly side of the cross sections is on the left?

[Josh B]

Just to be sure, the belly side of the cross sections is on the left?

Yep, I should have pointed that out.  Josh

[DC]

Thanks GD, I've been looking for something like that.