New Turkish 48 inch

[mikekeswick]

Thanks guys
It's certainly a prized possession now!
I got the horn from a man in Thailand.

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

That's a bow you can pass down to your children, oh btw, can you adopt me?

[Carson (CMB)]

Wow, that is killer work Mike. I ddint know you were up to these bows. It was on my list for awhile, but I just dont seem to have the time to relearn bow-making all over again    Glad you are!  Do you feel like the extra effort is yielding extra performance? All that reflex has to be providing a lot of energy.

Much much respect to you Mike.

[mikekeswick]

Wow, that is killer work Mike. I ddint know you were up to these bows. It was on my list for awhile, but I just dont seem to have the time to relearn bow-making all over again    Glad you are!  Do you feel like the extra effort is yielding extra performance? All that reflex has to be providing a lot of energy.

Much much respect to you Mike.

Kind words Carson Thank you.
I know what you mean but I haven't touched another bow since I finished this one. If you get the inspiration to make one (two,three...!)I think you will find that they are more than worth it. Sure they are more work but not really all that much. The actual time doing something would be about a week(undecorated), the rest of the time is just sitting on your hands waiting!
The way they feel when drawing and then that first shot at full draw....when you let go of the string and it feels like nothing at all just happened but the arrow disappearing confirms that yes you did actually just shoot it! Go on you know you want to make one!
The hardest thing for me has been learning to shoot with the thumbring. Firstly they are a nightmare to get dead right and having shot three fingers for years it was quite hard to accept being a complete amateur who couldn't hit a barn door again....but it's coming together now and last night we set a target at 140yds and I got a good few hits and the consistency is coming back.

[loon]

Niice! Learning to shoot with thumb draw mediocrely seems like nothing compared to making a horn bow.

Thinking of getting Adam Swoboda's book...

Have you had any problems with twist?

[mikekeswick]

Yes that book is good. I just wish it had some pictures of the inside of thumbrings....lots of pictures looking from above but it has been hard for me to get the shape right and i'm still not sure I have!
No twist problems with this bow. She is super stable now. I think that the 6months seasoning period is very important from a stability point of view. They are definitely more flippy floppy prior to that. The other thing is that fully dried glue is stronger and able to withstand sufficient heat for any corrections to be permanent with no creep back to the original position.

[loon]

Nice. I think I might've screwed up my hornbow I got from Tc with sloppy stringing and uneven tepeliks.. :\ hopefully I can correct the twist it got. At least it's shootable.

Getting a good thumb ring is critical to being able to shoot comfortably. I pad a Vermil Victory ring that's a bit too big for me with leather inside like the "kulak" or the "leaf of wanlan" described here:



http://www.thumbringarchery.org/blog/entry/based-on-the-fragment-from-the-book-the-art-of-shooting-a-short-reflexed-bow-with-a-thumb-ring



I made a fake leather thumb guard like this. It tended to slip off and go flying on release sometimes, tying it to my wrist helped against that .Maybe it should've been made of actual tough leather and tighter on my thumb.

https://picasaweb.google.com/101229348267498449698/HowToMakeALeatherThumbGuard?feat=embedwebsite

When I switched from the Kaya KTB thumb glove to a thumb ring, I was getting the string ripping off skin on my index and hitting the tip of my thumb. This was alleviated by getting used to putting the index further from the string, my particular leather inside the ring being long and protecting the tip of the thumb? and.. dunno, a clean release? The Turkish thumb rings are tiny..

good luck

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

I'll see about snapping some pics of my thumb ring when I get home tonight. I made mine out of PVC, I cut it right out of the side of an old pipe, the pipe was maybe 3" across and probably 1/4" think, maybe. I wanted it a little thicker around the hole so the string wont bite your thumb, basically the old vermil style, so I cut out the long oval shape and then a circular shape as well. I used CA glue to glue the circular piece to the "top" of the oval and then drilled a hole in the center and used one of those cone shaped rotary grinder heads to enlarge it and made a slope towards the tip on the inside. It's very easy to customize the fit this way as the PVC is relatively soft material and sands/grinds away well. Once it fit relatively well I put it in the microwave and heated it up until it was fairly pliable (use tongs, lol) and used that to put a curve in the tip (until this point the whole thing was basically straight perpendicular to my thumb except for the sloping in the hole). Then I just reduced the outside dimensions, rounded the circular "top" of the ring, rounded the edges on the tip etc. I made about four or five before I got this perfect one but it was the first four or five I've ever attempted and I'm not real great with my hands. Also the first one with this double thick design was the perfect one so the others may have sucked just from the thinness of the ring. One of the cool things with PVC is when you heat it up in the microwave it gets kinda tan with browner highlights and looks just like bone, I've had so many folks ask me what kind of bone it is, lol.


Edit: I found one photo I already had...

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

[BowEd]

Mike......Saw your video of your 2 horn bows.Kuddos to your dedication/research and follow through to make such bows.I'm sure the use and function of them is totally rewarding.Your finish work is super.
I have made the holmgaard version types like your first too in the 60" length range.Love the performance of them.Have used hickory and maple for cores/gemsbok for horn/and elk leg sinew.Usually just start out with around 10" reflex.Then tiller it to shoot with anywhere from 5 to 8 inches of usable reflex.Trick with these as you know one gets made after another is to estimate thicknesses for draw weight so as to leave as much horn on belly as possible while tillering.Probably not quite the performance of your typical type horn bow but still not bad.Have another curing at this time to.
As mentioned earlier I do have a couple of horn bows in construction.I'll see if I can follow through with them.
Thanks for posting your bows.They are wonderful to look at.
 

[BrokenArrow]

Mike. How wide and thick are the sals at their widest and thickest point? I am making 2 Turkish bows right now 50 and 52 inches and they weigh about 500 grams and are 34 mm wide and 13mm thick. I fear they are both about 100 #. Please post your dimensions. Thanks and great job.

[mikekeswick]

BrokenArrow - I'd be interested to see them! Mine is shorter at 48 inch ntn and has now settled at 63#@28 (I've only just got round to weighing it) the sals at mid point between fades and kasan eye are 31mm x 10mm.
Even though your bows are longer I suspect that 13mm thick sals are going to give you quite some weight! Where are you measuring 13mm? What are the measurements mid sal?
How thick is your horn?

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

100#, so period weights then, lol.

[Carson (CMB)]

Mike, how do you do your joint between horn and belly?  Deep matched toothing grooves, flat, or flat and roughened up? Do you use fish glue?

[BrokenArrow]

Mike,
I will post a pics tonight.
It is 48 inches NTN and weighs 500 grams.(No leather yet)
I measured at the widest point in the sal.
Wood and horn combined before sinew from about 15 to 40 cms has thickness of between 9 and 10mm.
If the weight is not dropping would you say it is fully dried?