Red Maple MH Style Board Bow

[blackhawk]

Wouldnt it have been easier to just learn by listening to those with more knowledge and experience than by going thru and attempting that mess of a handle?  Every experienced guy on here wouldnt have hesistated betting a good amount of money that it was gonna let loose....  Jus sayin...

[BowEd]

Plan B...I have some of that flax like you got.Bought it somewhere.Hav'nt used it seriously yet on anything.I'm sure it'll come into use for me sometime.TB3 was the glue I was going to try with it too.The deal that drew me me to getting it was that it weighs a lot less than sinew.For the limbs[the back since it's good in tension.] in some sort of use like that where there is surface lateral tension going on.
I know this is regurgitated hindsite but in your situation there with the handle 3 wraps thick of sinew with hide glue the full length over those tapered rings on the handle,then some thick rawhide stretched and sewn on very tight over the whole handle might of held the handle together at 50# or lower.
Maybe someone may have mentioned that already.I've reinforced fades on bows already using sinew and rawhide.
An A+ though for your investigation of a M Heath type bow though, and showing the results.

[PlanB]

Wouldnt it have been easier to just learn by listening to those with more knowledge and experience than by going thru and attempting that mess of a handle?  Every experienced guy on here wouldnt have hesistated betting a good amount of money that it was gonna let loose....  Jus sayin...

Yep, easier. Easier to build a board bow. Easier to buy a glass bow. Easier to stop building and shooting and sit and watch television until you croak. But less interesting.

And I don't give a damn if somebody with more knowledge and experience doesn't like what I do.

Beadman, thanks, I'd rather post a structural failure that's part of an experiment than avoid that responsibility to the people following it.

[BowEd]

Sometimes and I'd say most times the reasons for doing things are not explained,and sometimes people don't ask the right questions for why things are done in a certain way.The poster most times is open to any questions.I see your point about responsibility but the poster has already lived up to his by succeeding on his project.Most times the poster just wants to post results and not type forever explaining preconcieved questions that might arise.That's what's cool about this site,and I don't think you'll find a more helpful site out there.
I know I've run into advice that I did'nt want to hear.No shame in it at all.It's a long learning curve making all of these different types of bows.For me understanding the strong and weak points of materials is a must.

[bubbles]

Interesting experiment.  Like Blackhawk mentioned, I think sinew wraps would have made a difference in the longevity of the bow.  In fact, if you just epoxy the handle back together and trade the flax wraps for sinew on the whole handle, I would be curious to see if you got more arrows through it than before.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Sinew wont change the results. Rather than breaking like the flax it will stretch after the glue line blows up, but still broke in the end.

 

[PlanB]

Bubbles, that suggestion was beadman's, and I agree with it, and you, that sinew and/or rawhide could prove better. But flax is what I have and what I'm curious about, so that's what I'm going to continue to use.

I don't mind if the bow breaks again any more than a materials engineer minds that a test sample breaks. At this point I have nothing to lose by gluing this bow blank back together and testing more flax. Why throw these two limbs away without testing more?

So enough of the reasons why, I think I'm beating that horse to death here, and it's getting boring I bet. Let's talk about flax itself. What I'm seeing is what I think you'd expect of failure in flax.

Flax is reported to have high tensile strength for its weight, and have only 1% stretch. That's vs. 3% elongation for sinew. What that means to me is that flax will be great up until a point, but then it will break without stretching or warning. While sinew and rawhide will stretch more, and return for an equivalent amount of tensile strength at that loading. Stretch not by much, but some.

So if you are designing for flax, you want to overbuild the reinforcement so it doesn't come close to its break point. Presumably, it's still lighter when overbuilt than sinew or rawhide.

Okay, that's a theory. Not proof -- you'd have to do controlled tests to find that out, and specify all kinds of things like the quality of flax, glue/resin used, wood, test method etc. etc. and the same for the animal materials.

I'm not doing that. I'm doing it the sloppy, fun way, for me. My theory is that I went too thin on the backing, and I should have put it and the rings down in layers. I'm going to try that out on the same bow again. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. Let's find out........

edit: wrote this before I saw Pearl Drums post...

[blackhawk]

No need to soil ur diaper here dude.....chill out.

The merits and properties of flax isnt the issue here,or needs to be the solution in just adding more...your main problem here is the way you attached the limbs to the handle...nuff said.

Btw...sinew wraps was my suggestion first..but i even stated i wouldnt even continue with that even with sinew wraps over a poorly glued wrong type of glue joint used....reread your thread again....

[dragonman]

bad luck...sorry it broke....just caught your thread, was wondering how it would go!!!

failures are the pillars of success.......I'm sure you learnt a lot.....I broke 2 bows last week....thats the way of bowyering it seems...they dont all work

Dave

[willie]

I for one, appreciate the willingness to experiment and share the results. Even if the bow breaks, there is something to be learned.......by all who are participating in the discussion.


On the other hand, some commenter's seem to participate only by "dropping pronouncements from on high"  just sayin.....

[PlanB]

Blackhawk, there is no issue here with a "wrong" or "bad" glue joint.

There is no "right" glue joint because the original didn't have any glue joint. Just carved out violated end grain.

If I had just carved out that handle from a single piece of wood, exactly same manner as the original was done, it would have shown the same weakness and broken the same way. I knew that going in.

The whole point of this is a "what if" question. What if the builder of the original bow had banded the handle as well as the rest of the limbs. Would it have held? And what if I used flax instead of rawhide or sinew for banding reinforcing throughout?

I don't know anybody who can definitively answer those questions, other than offer a personal opinion based on entirely different bows and materials. Practically every MH replica bow built in recent times has avoided the crooked cross grain handle. But I didn't want to just do it with the usual straight handle. I want to see what those "what if's" in action not just take somebody's word for it.

Please, get off the glue joint -- that wasn't what broke. The point of that joint wasn't to make the bow act differently than the original weak cross grain handle but only to equal it. And I hope the new glue joint is just as bad or worse. That will be a good test of the banding and backing.

Sure blackhawk, if you did a totally different kind of handle joint, scarf, finger, laminated curve, grown curve, steam bent curve or a joint with different wood orientation, it might have been stronger. But that wouldn't have answered the two questions I had about band reinforcement on the original type of handle.

And substituting rawhide or sinew won't answer the questions I have about flax.

If you want to build a finger jointed rawhide backed Meare Heath, I promise I'll read your thread and applaud along with everybody else. But that ain't this project.

[Oglala Bowyer]

"And I don't give a damn if somebody with more knowledge and experience doesn't like what I do."  Made my day 

[PlanB]

The bow is glued back together, and I spent a couple hours today removing the band reinforcements. Not an easy task.

[Stick Bender]

Love the forensic Archilolgy aspect of your thread  & exsparmental  attitude  keep it up can't  wait for next update.

[RyanY]

Pretty clearly too much leverage for such a short length of wood to hold together. Would have been extremely lucky if it held together and even then it probably would have been a ticking time-bomb. The meare heath bow has a much gentler transition in its setback than the bow you've made. Also it is made of yew which is known to be able to handle massive ring violations. I expect you may eventually make the concept work but not with that piece of wood.