New Turkish - first brace

[mikekeswick]

Here is a new Turkish bow. First brace and she behaved very well indeed. Virtually no twist, completely stable and the limb balance was almost perfect. Can't beat a bit of good luck
Draw weight on this one is only about 45#, I wanted to test out the efficiency of a lighter hornbow to see how it compares to my best wooden bows. We will see.
My next 'batch' of bows are all going to be replicas of actual Turkish bows from the Topaki Palace museum. I will be using the numbers in Adam's book. I'm very interested to see what weights they come out at and if I'll be able to pull them! If not i'll put in the hours getting bow strong....haha
I will likely be covering this bow with silk to keep the weight down.

[Stick Bender]

That's a beautifull bow Mike I love the brace profile please publish the numbers when you get it all dialed in I'm very interested in that one

[Tc]

I would strengthen the kasan-eye area. It already opens almost fully at normal brace height, making the shape non-turkish. Also the tip angle should be a bit more radical...It still can be a great shooter though....Anyway a working hornbow is a success itself

[davidjw]

Beautiful work! Would be very interested to hear how it compares to a wood bow.  What sort of dimensions did you use to get that draw weight (ntn length and horn/wood thickness)?

[loon]

yeah, why the more opened angles? good job either way

[mikekeswick]

I would strengthen the kasan-eye area. It already opens almost fully at normal brace height, making the shape non-turkish. Also the tip angle should be a bit more radical...It still can be a great shooter though....Anyway a working hornbow is a success itself

The problem with that would be the sinew delaminating (I know all the tricks to make that unlikely but it still be a possibility over time) - I was playing around with a few things on this one (mainly a slightly lower stress design that could be strung for a long time with little loss of performance). It was braced at 7 1/2 inches in the brace photo with a string I had lying around.
Stickbender/ Davidjw - I will hopefully get around to testing it today. It is 48 inch ntn and 9.6mm at the thinnest part (kasan eye). I can't remember horn/wood thicknesses but it is generally a good idea to split the three parts equally.

[BowEd]

Wow...I think you really nailed it,but what do I know.I'm sure it's a bit of relief balancing out like that at first brace.Always amazes me how much draw length that's gotten from those little bows.
I'll predict from the dark that the little bow will perform well.To me and as you elluded to it's a longevity plus factor the effort made constructing these little composites.That comparison is always up for debate but as for me the composites have the ace in the hole on the whole deal with the lighter massed limbs and extension of draw.Thanks for showing.

[mikekeswick]

Managed to shoot the bow and chrono it. 27 inch draw, 490 grain arrow, bow is 50@28. Most shots were between 182 and 185 fps. At the moment it has got an overbuilt 16 strand B50 string. Fastflight will help a bit more. This bow has been seasoned for about 6 months but humidity has been high all summer here and now it is 80% + all the time so it will have room to dry some more.
I used rowan for the core which is about 0.60sg and hollowed out the kasan sections quite a lot to reduce outer limb weight. I tried to push the reflex in the bending sections as far as I dared and it seems to be keeping it well. I'll get a picture up of it unbraced.

[wizardgoat]

sweet looking bow Mike, can't wait to see it all finished up