Sheep Horn Bow build (complete)

[wizardgoat]

Alright, we all have our own "bowyers bucket list", and a sheep horn bow has been near the top of mine for a while.
Instead of trading 20 horses for one of these little buffalo bangers, I thought what better time than now to attempt one.
A bow made of no wood, only horn and sinew.
There isnt a whole lot of info out there on making these bows, but there is a few sources I have on hand. Native American Bows has some great info, as well as American
Indian archery and the Encyclopedias of Bows Arrows and Quivers has some cool stuff as well.
I've never done a build along, so bare with me! Whether I fail or succeed, I'm hoping we can all at least learn something.
I acquired the horn and sinew from Chuck Loeffler thru trade, and lucky for me, he had already reduced the horn to strips to avoid border customs issues.
He even sent me the off cuts, so I'll have nice tip overlay material for a looooooong time.
Chucks website is also a good read on horn bows.
Here are the horn strips and one of the off cuts.







Chuck had already done one heat session to get some curl out, but they needed another one to get them flat enough to work easily.
I profiled the bow to around 1 1/4 till mid limb and a slight taper to the tips, for now anyways.
I began to reduce the thickness of the horn strips. Much like wood bows I aimed to have a slight thickness taper toward the tips.
I had a few "soft?" spots in the horn, so I needed to get under neath them. Not totally sure on the desired thickness or amount of stress to put on the horn at this point, so I went with what felt right.
I sort of pre tillered the strips over my knee, so I knew I was on the right track. I'm not concerned with draw weight on this bow, If it happens to shoot an arrow I'd be more than happy.
I whipped up a quick caul to begin shaping the horns. I went with 1" of backset, not sure if its too much, or not enough.
I tapered each strip for 3" for a lap splice. Theres alot of ways to do horn bow handles, but the lap splice seems the easiest to me.
I boiled the horn for about 5 minutes and quickly clamped them down, heres what they looked like.



After the horn cooled, it was time to glue the handle. I bought some high quality hide glue online a while back, so I decided to use it.
I think I got a pretty good fit, I hope anyways.



I made a piece of horn to fit on the back of the handle. I tried to make a belly one but gave up after I couldnt get it to fit right. I hope that doesnt't come back to haunt me. Here is what the handle looks like cleaned up a bit.





Some twist issues to deal with.

[lebhuntfish]

Very cool Goat! I'll be watching this very closely. Definitely on my bucket list! Thanks for making this post. Patrick

[mikekeswick]

Cool!!
I've never made one of these but I have made a few 'normal' hornbows. With a structral splice like that it's obvious that it must stay together for the bow to work, so with that in mind I am wondering how you prepared the horn for gluing? When it comes to gluing horn to a wooden core you have to use many sizing coats of very thin glue to make sure you get a good bond with the horn. Horn being so dense it's hard for the glue to properly wet the surface(unlike wood), if you gently heat it and apply many coats of thin glue you can get around this problem and get a good bond as the collagen molecules get built up slowly.
Anyways best of luck with this one, it will be super cool 

[wizardgoat]

Mike- yes, from what I've read and heard, handle failures are the most common way for these to go.
       I made sure the pieces were as flat as I could get them and roughed them up with heavy grit 
       sand paper. I did size them with thin warm glue,, and they seemed to soak  up a couple coats       pretty good. I used a thicker glue for the actual glue up. I didn't hear the horn, but will on the next one. I bet I'll be saying that a lot haha, so thanks for the input.
      Not gonna lie, I'll be relying big time on a HEAVY wrapping up sinew at the handle, and will be
       Do my best to avoid any big bending in the handle. Even if it means I lose some draw length.
      Forgot to mention, the horn core is 31" long.

[Aaron H]

Very cool wizard

[Parnell]

How thick do you think you've got those strips?  Did you reduce on the belly side, also?
Good post.

[JoJoDapyro]

Looking good. These bows amaze me.

[wizardgoat]

Cheers guys, I'll post more tonight.
Parnell- I reduced the back first, too make sure I had a nice even platform for the sinew backing.
When the back seemed good, I started reducing the belly, very slowly with a fine rasp.
They were about 1/4" tapering to about 3/16"

[Parnell]

I started this some time ago.  Not easy to cut out and straighten those Dall ram horns.  I'm worried that I've violated the horn on one of my strips.
Anyhow, lots of projects to do.  Looking forward to watching your progress.  Best of luck...

[Redhand]

Pretty cool. That will be a sweet bow when it's all said and done. You will be amazed with these bows. 

[Redhand]

How many layers of sinew are you thinking about putting on this bow.

[wizardgoat]

Redhand - A layer is a little different from person to person, Im thinking around 2.5-3 oz for this bow, it'll be about 1/3 to 1/2 sinew in thickness.

Alright, I got a little more work into this thing. I began to tiller the horn by bending it over my knee. I left a couple C clamps
on it because I didnt fully trust my handle without the sinew wrappings yet..
When I got it looking pretty good I put a string on it, and this is what first brace looked like,



I was pretty pleased with it, but decided to keep removing horn to get a more even bend. My string alingment was a little off too.




I tugged on it a bit, and it became pretty obvious I needed to get a little more bend happening mid limb and out. To my eyes anyways.




Using a scraper I kept removing horn. After a few checks, I braced it up a little higher and it looked like this.



I also decided it was maybe a good time to try and get some twist out.  I steamed it over the mouth of a kettle for a few minutes, torqued it by hand and put it under running cool water.
It really seemed to help, if it stays we'll see.





I began to prepare my sinew a few weeks ahead of time. I don't really enjoy the process, but I have become alot quicker at it. I'll be using deer leg sinew, and probably one final layer of back strap.
Theres plenty of sinew how to's online, so I wont waste much time on it. Here's a couple pics of where she's at.




2 layers down and after a few nights it had already gained some nice reflex.


I waited a week and laid down another couple layers, she curled up a bit more.


I'll wait another week or so and add a final layer and do some handle and nock wrapping.

[Danzn Bar]

Nice looking sinew work....Ryan   
DBar

[lebhuntfish]

Very nice work Ryan! The bow sure is coming along nicely! The way you're doing this build along makes it look, not so intimidating to do one myself. Thank you very much for taking the time to do this for us.

Now I have to find me through right horn to do one for myself! Patrick

[wizardgoat]

Thanks Dbar!
Patrick- If your lucky to find a set they will cost you 400-500, and there's no guarantees it'll be good sound horn. I'd also say it's a good idea to make a couple short bows, maybe a couple sinew backed reflexed shorties as well. start surfin your local listings and maybe there's someone selling a nice set, that's how I got one of mine.