Hello everyone, I wanted to show off my latest build. The goal of this build was to replicate a bow similar to the early all natural bows built by Howard Hill. This style would also be known as an American semi longbow (ASL). This was also my first attempt at trying to “pre-tiller” the bow with the use of multiple tapered laminations
This bow is made out of 4 tapered black locust laminations along with a tapered bamboo backing. Each black locust lamination was individually heat treated on both sides before gluing everything together. The bow was glued up in a straight form using a marine grade epoxy. After sitting for a day, I took the bow off the form and glued on 10 laminations of black cherry for the handle. I used multiple laminations for the handle to increase the strength in hopes that it would not pop off.
My goal for the project was to tiller the bow without sanding through the belly lam. All tillering was done by trapping the back of the bow, reducing the width, and rounding the sides of the belly. It was not until the very end that I lightly sanded on the belly to get the final tiller touched up.
The bow was glued up with a straight profile and ended up with just over an inch of string follow when finished. It is 67” NTN and draws 50# @ 27”.
The bow follows the dimensions of typical hill/ ASL bows. The bow is 1” wide at the fades with a 2” deep by 1” wide handle. The riser length is 12” with a handle section of 4”. One difference is that this bow has tip overlays that a hill bow typically would not. I used small osage overlays that are blended into the bamboo so they are not noticeable after staining the bamboo.
When shot over the chrony, the bow shoots 10 gpp at a very consistent 166 fps. This is right in the range of what I expected it to do. The string follow design makes the bow a very mild and pleasant shooter.
The bow was finished off with a reddish brown stain on the bamboo before coating the entire bow with 3 coats of shellac. It was then sealed with 4 coats of water based exterior grade spar varnish. A leather grip was glued on and a piece of leather added to the arrow shelf.
This bow was an experiment that turned out much better then I had expected it would. I am quite pleased with it and hope my next attempts at this style turn out even better.
Enjoy SS.
Braced and Unbraced
