adding some zip to my selfbow

[Joec123able]

It's just plain and simply way too long for the light draw weight to give any real performance. If it were mine id cut it down to 68 inches and retiller.

[Stick Bender]

Wow that is a tall drink of water , my thoughts are maybe the original bowyer saw some thing in the wood that caused him to make it long and light weight that can't be seen in the pics , every time I made a bow that under performed but was in good tiller I just left it a lone and applied improvements to the next one  but that's just me , if your looking to gain some bow knowledge TBB1 would be a good source for you ,You can get a e- copy on Kindle or Nook or in hard copy form welcome & Good luck !

[lebhuntfish]

First off,  welcome to PA!

I have my own thoughts about this bow and how to go about fixing it. But I have a couple of questions for you first.
Have you contacted the Bowyer that made you the bow? I know you said you didn't want him to think the bow sucks.  But you probably payed good money for it. 
Are you sure you are holding the bow with the correct limb in the up position?

IIf I were to have made you this bow and you were to call me and send a picture of that full draw  I would insist on fixing it for you or replacing the bow all together. 

What is happening is that the upper limb (in the pics) has a fairly smooth arch and the bottom limb is only bending in about a 10 inch section just below the handle. 
That is making the bow week and unstable and harder to shoot. 
IIf I had to guess,  your not consistent in hitting your mark and it almost jumps out of your hand when you release.
II would suggest contacting your Bowyer and if he doesn't want to fix it for you then proceed with the DIY repair. 
This group has some of the best Bowyer's in the world and would be willing to help walk you through fixing her up.
Be careful though,  this stuff is addictive,  you may be building your own bow before you know it. 

Patrick

[bradsmith2010]

looks like you might not be pulling it to full draw,,

[Badger]

  Real long lightbows can be a bear to make. As soon as the limbs start bending it seems like you hit your target draw weight and haven't even finished tillering yet. If the bow is at least 1 1/4 wide I would cut it down to about 68" and retlller as suggested above. You have lots of limb that is not bending right now. A good heat treat might also help.

[loon]

I thought of making such a light long bow but with a 33" draw, similar to warbow draw, wonder how it'd perform..

[LittleBen]

First, you need to decide if you wanna be a bowyer or not, because in all honesty, piking, and heat tempering should be paired with careful retiller ing of any bow.

Regarding the bow itself. The bow is not terrible, but the tiller does not look spectacular, bottom limb is weak slightly and not tillered perfectly IMO. The bow is clearly too long for 29" draw and/or 40#.

Regarding the archer. You are not hitting 29" I suspect. Put a clothespin on your arrow shaft, and draw the bow using the back of the bow to pull the clothespin as you draw, then let down, and measure the position of the clothespin. This will tell you how far you are drawing. Or get a friend to measure while you draw, or just to mark your arrow while you draw.

If it were my bow I would: pike the bow to 68" ish. Narrow tips. Retiller as necessary. Then heat temper. Then check tiller and fine tune as needed. But I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that all of that is an easy slam dunk for a first timer.

I might consider seeing if the bowyer would tune it up for you before considering a drastic series of moves like that.

Be nice and he won't take it as an attack on his work.

Just my .02

[tankerjohn]

Wow, thanks guys.  Lots of great info.  I can see this is going to be a bigger project than I thought.  Really it seems to me the biggest problem I have is unrealistic expectations for a bow like this.  I hadn't ever thought it being too tall for the draw weight or that the reason real ELBs were six feet long is because they pulled north of 100#.  Like I said, the bowyer pretty much gave me what I asked for; I suspect now that if I had asked for the best shooting stick of hazel wood, this isn't what he would have given me.  I might drop him a line, but really the shipping would cost more than the bows worth so I don't think sending it back makes much sense at this point.  I'm gonna check out that Bowyer's Bible and then go from there.  Piking and tempering sounds like the best way to go. 

BTW, I don't think I was very clear.  The arrows I was shooting were 29"; my draw is 28".  I had my son measure me with a yardstick.  I'm going to try that clothes pin trick, though.  That's a great idea.   

[SLIMBOB]

There you go. Broad range of ideas on the subject. Now you just need to decide which coarse of action you will take. What you are talking about doing is pretty easy for someone with a bit of experience, but you will be flying a bit blind. Knowledge is power, and all that you need to know to do this can be found on this forum. Lots of folks can offer guidance and suggestions so keep us posted. Good luck! 

[Scottski]

Always lots to learn. There are a bunch of great people on here to learn from to. I wish I lived close buy one of these guys. If you have traditional archer clubs around check and see if any make their own bows? I have yet to meet someone who likes to do something that will not talk about it.  If no clubs around then here is your place!  I live in Paragould Arkansas no one around me does this that I know of so far. That my friend is why I read and learn from these fine people.

[mikekeswick]

Although it is very long and not tillered correctly. It IS possible to make a 40# hazel bow at 77 inch long that performs well. The way to do it is to have a very elliptical tiller. If your bowyer doesn't know that then I wouldn't be going back to him. Correct tiller shape for width profile and bow length are absolutely key to making a good bow and are pretty simple concepts.
I agree with what Ben has said don't expect this to be a 'quick' fix with no issues. If you had an experienced bowyer on hand to help you then it isn't difficult but.....ask lots of questions and make sure you KNOW what you are doing before doing it!
Oh and by the way a well made wooden bow can perform as well as any production glass bow. Glass will only out perform wood when you start going 'extreme' with them and no production bow is built like that! I know because I make both kinds and have done lots of testing with them. Do not accept poor performance of a wooden bow simply because it is only wood....that is just an excuse for less than perfect work on the part of the bowyer

[bushboy]

Good advice given.what wood working tools do you have?do you have a heat gun?

[tankerjohn]

I do have a heat gun, plus a small draw knife, a couple rasps, and power elliptical sander.  I would so love to get into building my own bows, its just that between job, family, work around the house, etc, I prefer to spend my limited archery time shooting.  I'm sure a few of you can relate.  I think I'm going to shelve this project for now until I read a little more and scour the threads here.  I do really like how this bow looks, and I think its worth fixing up right. 

[tankerjohn]

Although it is very long and not tillered correctly. It IS possible to make a 40# hazel bow at 77 inch long that performs well. The way to do it is to have a very elliptical tiller. If your bowyer doesn't know that then I wouldn't be going back to him. Correct tiller shape for width profile and bow length are absolutely key to making a good bow and are pretty simple concepts.
I agree with what Ben has said don't expect this to be a 'quick' fix with no issues. If you had an experienced bowyer on hand to help you then it isn't difficult but.....ask lots of questions and make sure you KNOW what you are doing before doing it!
Oh and by the way a well made wooden bow can perform as well as any production glass bow. Glass will only out perform wood when you start going 'extreme' with them and no production bow is built like that! I know because I make both kinds and have done lots of testing with them. Do not accept poor performance of a wooden bow simply because it is only wood....that is just an excuse for less than perfect work on the part of the bowyer

Oh, I have no doubts a wood selfbow can equal a glassed bow in performance.  I would guess, though, that such a bow would either be a flatbow design or made of one of the high-quality bow woods like yew or osage, or both.  Am I wrong?

[Badger]

  Years ago I had to make about 20 english longbows that looked like the real thing but only drew about 40#. Most woods were too heavy for this so I used white cedar and the bows shot great. An english longbow is kind of unique because it has to have certain dimensions in the cross section. A very dense wood might just be too heavy for the length, elyptical tillering can usually make up for the wood density issue but sometimes you just need a lighter wood. Most woods perform about the same if they don't take set.