My horn bow build-a-long

[Mafort]

I’m not 100% sure on that question. That’s how I have mine setup.

[DC]

Yet another question. 3 piece and 5 piece. 5 piece would be two siyahs,2 limbs and a grip. 3 piece could be 2 siyahs and one piece for the limbs and grip or it could be the grip and 2 limbs complete with siyahs. Does it matter?

[Mafort]

Id go with the three. The two siyahs and the stave. If you can. Some find it easier to glue on the handle rather that glue a separate piece on.

[DC]

I bit the bullet and bought the Kindle version of Adam's book. A quick look through and a lot of it is like reading the answers to questions on this forum. I think a lot of the answers are direct quotes. Anyway there is a ton of info to go through and it seems to be shotgunned through the book. One measurement here and another 20 pages away. I have mostly figured out the dimensions so I'm making a full sized drawing to see how it comes together. First thing I noticed is that these things are small and the working limb is even smaller so you don't really need great long horns. I think my shortest horn will be 4-5 inches to long. I finally got the horn mostly(good enough) straightened. I thinned it down to 1/4"(like Mafort said). Instead of boiling I put the strips in a 250°f oven for 1/2 hour, clamped them between two boards and left them overnight to cool.

[Mafort]

I would take a pair of calipers and check to be 100%. If also still make your core 1/8” thick so that way you can scrape the horn away gently and get your draw weight. I am in no way an expert but that’s what I’m doing. I’d read that book and re read it to soak in all the information on it

[DC]

The horn is just roughed out now. I have to run it through the thickness sander to get rid of those little dips and then scrape it smooth. Long way to go yet. I'm kind of thinking I would put the horn on at 1/8-3/16" thick. I cut my laths and grip today. I'm going with 3 piece, grip and limbs as long as I don't mess up the limbs bending them. Limbs are Douglas Maple and the grip is Ocean Spray. Kind of a western Eastern bow. Here's some pictures of the pieces and my mock up. I used the limb of a Plum bow I'm making for the mock up. Did you find that the info was kind of shotgunned around that book?

[Mafort]

I wouldn’t know to be honest. I’ve never read it.

[DC]

I’d read that book and re read it to soak in all the information on it

Which book was this?

[DC]

Here's a picture of the caul I'm planning to bend my limbs around. I'll do a couple of test bends to see if I like the shape. I can do that while I'm waiting for the limbs to soak for a week!! That seems like a long soak but I guess it can't hurt. I've only got the two perfect? limb laths. No sense taking a chance.

[Mafort]

Yea that’s true and I was talking about the book or you mentioned earlier. To be honest I’m kinda winging this. I read the past posts as far back as I could on the horn bows section and I learned a lot of information about it

[gorazd]

I made a shortcut to avoid bending thick wood.
I made a form for turkish siyahs then glued 4 thinner strips (4mm thick) in form to match exact turkish look...

Here's a picture of the caul I'm planning to bend my limbs around. I'll do a couple of test bends to see if I like the shape. I can do that while I'm waiting for the limbs to soak for a week!! That seems like a long soak but I guess it can't hurt. I've only got the two perfect? limb laths. No sense taking a chance.

[DC]

Thank you for joining in. I was thinking that no one was reading this. I wondered about laminating after my first try at bending a piece of Hazel as a test. I got quite a bit of spring back. I hadn't soaked it for a week or dried it for a week but still. It would save me building a trough to boil it in. It would also save me a month in drying. Did you use epoxy or hide glue?

[gorazd]

I did laminating turkish siyahs with hide glue ...
I glued 4mm thick pieces of black locust. But before gluing - I did dry heat bending of the pieces to get some bends of the form - I heated with heat gun and fixed the laths (with the clamps)  in the form , one by one...
And left in the form for one day - I guess that with thinner laths (3mm ) it should go without prebending. But I did it to avoid too much stress with glue line and risk of cracking wood...
When gluing - I precoated the wood couple of times with thin hide glue and finnaly with one thick (hot) hide  glue - messy proces - when you join 4 pieces they get pretty slippery and some help is needed to fix them with clamps...



I did one pair of siyahs for mongol bow with epoxy glue too.... these still wait for next project 
Of course epoxy gluing is much much faster - I thickened the laminating resin with microbalons...

But regarding the strength - hide glue is very strong  - I joined two pieces of black locust with just one thick hot hide glue layer and couple of weeks later later I hammer tested the joint.
No way to crack the glue joint - wood gave in - black locust tear out.
Obviously black locust is compatible with hide glue...

Thank you for joining in. I was thinking that no one was reading this. I wondered about laminating after my first try at bending a piece of Hazel as a test. I got quite a bit of spring back. I hadn't soaked it for a week or dried it for a week but still. It would save me building a trough to boil it in. It would also save me a month in drying. Did you use epoxy or hide glue?

[DC]

So you're doing 5 piece construction? I have my Douglas Maple all cut out for complete limbs(3 piece). I may just continue that to keep with the traditional way but at the same time I think I'll follow your lead and epoxy up some Eastern Maple strips into siyahs as backup in case the bending goes bad. I'm curious to see if the soaking/boiling method will produce a limb with little or no springback.

[DC]

Oh, when you say you are gluing up the siyahs with 4mm lams how much of the bow are you making? Will your siyahs include the tips and the entire kasan or will it just be the tip and the outer half of the kasan. Put another way will you have a slice in the middle of the kasan? Sorry for all the questions.

Nevermind I just found it in Adams book on a 5 piece the splice is in the kasan.