How far to pull a bend in handle bow?

[Badger]

   When working with wood which is always different your best gage of how far to draw it is to just learn to monitor the condition of the wood as you build the bow. Which is basically watch the set. You can't avoid a little but you want to try to avoid as much as possible. If it is taking set in 1 area then that area is bending too much so you would need to slightly lower the draw weight and get other areas bending more to extend the draw length further. No real formula once you get started but going in I like to figure about 1/2 the length of the bow on a bendy handle bow. You will see a lot of examples here of 48" bows drawing 28" some of them with stiff handles. Some of them took too much set and some of them took hardly any at all. Really important to learn how to monitor your wood.

[George Tsoukalas]

240,
It looks a bit better now but your string angle is at 90 degrees so I think you are done.

When you shoot that bow it is going to be a bit shocky on you because of how much the handle is bending.

Donald's tiller is excellent.

Jawge

[burchett.donald]

 240m3srt,
                    Yes, I did lose a few inches of reflex...These pics show starting floor tiller and then finished tiller unbraced...It was 55"ntn and 54@25...
                                                                           Don

[k-hat]

To answer your questions:
The formula i gave was limb length, not bow length.  eg for a 68" stiff handle bow with 8" grip (1.5" thick) and fade area you would have each limb about 30ish inches long.  A bendy bow with 30" limbs would be 60ish" inches overall, the grip actually being part of the limbs since it's working .  All else being equal, both bows could potentially be drawn to 30", but the bendy bow would be feeling the strain of only 29" draw, meaning you could potentially get another inch of draw to have same strain as the stiffgrip bow.

The point was just that bendy's can typically be drawn a little further, not a hard and fast formula.

Don't get caught up in particulars, listen to Badger and listen to the wood.

[half eye]

Mr. Burchett knows of what he speaks....especially with "bendy" bows. I have several of his bows and they shoot wicked strong and fast. None have "worn out" nor taken a lot of set.

One other thing, please dont get caught up in the "quest" of a short bow pulling past your ear.....if you want to shoot English style stance and draw then make an English Long bow if you want to get the most out of your short bendy SELF bow then modify your technique to more resemble that of the Native Americans. You noticed that said self bows, if ya want that gorilla draw and a thumb ring then go with  the "primitive composite" Asian  Hunic or other type "horse bow". (horn, wood, syahs, and sinew)

I have posted several deer kills with so called "shorties", "bendy" or what ever else they get called  and even at 24-25 inch draw and medium weight they drive my stone point arrows hard and kill clean......Native Americans used 'em cause they were good bows , sturdy, easy to make and easy to replace.

rich

[NorthHeart]

Thank you all for the technical advice regarding set and dimensions, i will apply that toward my other builds.  Afterall, i assume im not the only one that works on more than one bow at once, right lol.

Half eye its interesting what you said.  I shoot this and other shortbows pretty well.  I move my head further toward the string when necessary in order to anchor, i also hold the bow much more canted than normal.  Like you said modify your technique.  Its funny cause in the trad world theres all these rules about the best way to shoot, back tension and form.  Doubt the natives on horseback gave it so much thought, huh?  I would also be very interested to see your Burchett bows and kills, tried to search but me and the "search" feature here dont get along to well.  I dont know too many other people that hunt with shortbows and stone points so this stuff is pretty interesting to me.

[NorthHeart]

I did lighten it up, and go just a little bit further last night and pulled it to 24" on the board which i guess means 23.5" really.  I think the tips are bending a little more now but something i didnt tell yall is i have sheep horn tip overlays epoxied on.  Dont want them to pop off if the tips fully bend, hasnt been an issue so far.

So yes it took a bit more set, as i figured it would.  But this brings up a couple other questions that will help me on my future builds.  If i had worked that area on the right limb better from the beginning to where it didnt take that set, wouldnt the limbs be uneven as far as where they lined up on the grid.  Or perhaps im looking at it @$$ backwards.  Also, this is the first bow ive built where each inch of draw is pulling 5-6 more pounds rather than the standard 2-3.  Is this stack?  What is this really telling me as the bowyer?

There is something else im trying to understand, Tsoukalas mentions string angle 90 degrees....to what?  When i look at the string itself it appears to create an angle a bit over 90 degrees.  Ive read a bit of TBB and such but really i get a lot more out of feedback from you guys and by DOING

[PEARL DRUMS]

Yup, fine example of stacking, and a HUGE indicator letting you know not to pull a bow any farther. This bow isn't at 90 degrees yet, but you are getting there. I'd say you have a good tiller now and a bow that should not be drawn over 23".   

[Philipp A]

I think the tiller looks good now and judging from what I think are 4" squares on the background matrix it looks like you have ~ 1.5" of set which is really totally acceptable in my opinion for such a short bow. I would leave it and I think this will make a great shooting short bow.

[burchett.donald]

   240m3srt,
                    You really improved that bend sir...
                                                                                       Don

[George Tsoukalas]

Tiller looks very good now.

String angle is the angle between the string and the tips and the time when the bow begins to stack.

Looks like that has improved too.

Nicely done.

Jawge

[PEARL DRUMS]

The red lines I drew in show what string angle is. You can see its just about 90 deg.

[Badger]

   Just a tad under 90 degrees but very close, I think you could get another 1" or so.

[k-hat]

That's lookin good 240!  What is the final weight?  I bet she's still snappy!

[NorthHeart]

Thank you guys for all the help with my improvements, and facilitating a better understanding.  PD thanks for those little lines that helps a lot, so string angle is a measurement in reference to the TIPS specifically?

Guys i cant believe how this bow shoots! I can only draw it back to about 21-21.5" and with FF string shes shooting at 140-143fps with a 555gr arrow.  Super quiet with no string silencers and very little hand shock.  For comparison, my longer reflex stiff tipped/stiff handled hunting bow "Anastasis" only goes 137-140fps. For such a basic bow to build with no fancy reflex/backing(other than rawhide)/etc i still cant get over the speed and shootability.

Should i expect this bow to settle in some over the next 100-200 shots and loose some speed?  Do yall think sinew would have slowed it down?  Also, how much will a horse hair tuft affect speed?