Revisiting "Just What is a Self Bow, Anyhow?

[mullet]

  Like Steve and Paul said, It's simpler like it is. But personally it's the difference I look at in a bow

[Badger]

For the sake of a contest I like it the way it is. If it were a flight shoot or some kind of contest regarding performance I would want to see it more to the letter but it is what it is and it seems to work fine. Steve

[Jesse]

You are right I was knit picking but just for conversation I really dont care as long as the no fiberglass rule stays. I like that one   I dont want to make it harder on anyone
Mullet-- I have not made a sinew backed bow yet. I was just saying I think sometimes its used as necessity not to make up for lack of skill. example if all I had was birch and I needed a short high performance recurve I might use sinew because it would be a better bow. Not saying it cant be done without.    I do see your point though. its all good    Jesse

[AndrewS]

I think the rules are ok.
A soft backed bow from one piece(rawhide, hemp, sinew, silk,...) is right in as a selfbow.
A hard backed bow or a bow with several laminatons (hick, bo,....) is a backed bow.

Go on Don.

[Dustybaer]

for the sake of the competition keep the rules (we should have done a poll)  it was said before, why fix what ain't broke

now as far as definition goes, thin air is the only backing for a selfbow in my oppinion.  you could stretch it even further: if rawhide is a backing because it protects the back from raising splinters, then a wrapping performing the same function should be considered a backing too, so where do you draw the line?

[medicinewheel]

well, since january the name's been changed to from 'backed bow' to 'laminatd bow'; i thought it was to clarify this point?!

frank

[Sparrow]

    Well,....Backed is backed. Self....backed...lam'ed. Just my 2 cents (Might be a penny short) Frank

[a finnish native]

self bow can't be backed with that changes the bows performance. sinew completely changes the bows performance. but snake skins etc are fine.

[GregB]

I'm okay with it the way the competition currently is...no use making it more complicated and with added work.

I'm presently making a bow that had a couple of large worm holes through it. One of them is going at an angle through the center of the upper limb in a bending portion. Wouldn't be a candidate for a wood plug due to the size of the hole and angular track that little devil chewed in.    We also plugged the hole itself with tb3 and osage dust mixture. For that reason I'm backing the bow with rawhide as insurance against it breaking.  Otherwise CastIron was going to cook brats with it, and I couldn't let that happen.

[Badger]

Greg, on worm holes through the side of the bow there is a mixture of epoxy and glass dust that works pretty wll for filling them ( not primitive but at the price of staves today it beats throwing them away or breaking them, Steve

[JackCrafty]

George said: It cannot be a selfbow because it consists of more than one material.

Hmmmmm....what about different materials like paint? Waterproofing (like pine pitch)? Finish coats (like tallow or beeswax)? Bark left on? Mica mixed with hide glue for that "glitter" effect?  George's definition seems to define a "naked" bow....kinda like "naked" furniture.

I always thought a self bow was a single (not spliced/hinged/takedown) piece of wood with either it's bark on or off, and with painted or rubbed-on decorations, stains and/or finish coat(s).  The same definition applies to self arrows.  And since snakeskin is not painted or rubbed-on....the bow should be considered backed.

The Penobscot bow might be an exception but I don't think it's a self bow because it's not a single piece of wood....even though the two pieces might have been cut from the same stave.

A self bow could also be made of a non-wood material such as a single piece of bone or horn.

  (Just doin' my part to beat this topic to death)

[George Tsoukalas]

Well you know what I mean. Jawge

[medicinewheel]

when i first time came here i was surprised to see (sinew-)backed bows to be NOT in the backed bow category; than i thought'well that's probably the way it's'! --- and i'm totally fine with it ever since.
frank

[wolfsire]

Experiment breaking them up into different categories when convenient based upon the submissions when the numbers get too high to make an easy vote.

If only 10, lax rules for self bows.

If 30 break it into self bows and backed bows, or what the submission fits into simple lots.

[snedeker]

One option would be to keep it the way it is and rename the categories "laminated" and "non-laminated"

Dave