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Horn bow???
superdav95:
So it’s been busy and I haven’t posted anything in a bit. I had been working on this quick and dirty test horn bow. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out despite my doubts it would work all that well. I bought couple sets of water Buffalo horn strips from Ed (bowed) little while ago and fixed on making a test bow using couple strips on one of my 5 piece Mongolian style bows. Not my design for sure but some tweaks of my own but who’s to say it hasn’t been already done too. We shall see. So I used bamboo as my core (moso). I heat treated this bamboo as well which I believe helped in the end. I used hhb (iron wood) for the syahs and angle lammed with more horn for looks and used hickory for the handle. I v notched the syahs into the bamboo at the limb ends as can be seen from the pics. Let me know what you think so far. It’s not completely done yet but shootable and tillered up. Not sure on a stain for the boo yet but think something dark. I did not do backing or sinew on this one. Wanted to test the idea of unbacked boo horn bow for kicks. So far it shoots like a rocket. Don’t mind the green tape! Lol No chrono yet and haven’t shoot at full draw yet either. it’s around 45-50 lbs from what I estimate.
Cheers
superdav95:
I’ll post few more pics tomorrow and try and get some measurements posted here too. Thanks again bowEd for the horn! I went little narrower on the limbs on this one as the horn added a lot of weight so it helped in reducing weight down. I’ll weight the bow too tomorrow.
Like I said this is just a test bow and only used ea 40 epoxy and will eventually try one with hide glue or fish glue maybe. It was nice to cut my teeth on working with horn on this one before deep diving on full fledged horn bow. I will try one eventually one day.
Cheers
BowEd:
Your welcome.You went right to work there and got a close to finished bow without sinew.Looks great and bet it draws sweet.Your right the whole process with sinew takes a lot longer time.It's matter of knowing the thickness & width of each material for a final template.The more you make the more insight you get knowing where to start at for draw weight with thickness/width and length.
Using denser materials as a core is a good idea too.
Estimating draw weight on horn takes a few bows to get in the ball park.Getting Adam Karpowitzes book on building turkish horn bows would help later if you have a notion going that route.It's a gradual bow building process 1 bow after another.I posted a build-a-long on the thickness to draw weight guide using gemsbok horn in the early days stated in reply no.28.http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,42181.msg564713.html#msg564713
To me it's really interesting densitizing the bellys on these bows whether its' with heat or a denser material.
Usually the horn is glued over the V notch of the siyahs but it should hold up ok.Sinew wrapping is an option there too.
superdav95:
Thanks bowed Funny story on the v notch actually. I had originally built this bow little longer and glued the syahs on the top of the bamboo and the secured with cord by wrapping tight. I guess I flattened little too much and weekened the tip and it snapped. So I had to shorten it and v notch the boo with the horn lammed into the syahs. It ended up looking cool anyway and it seems to be holding up. Should I wrap them you think???
Cheers
simk:
very good job Dave! looks crafted perfectly! would like to see the tiller ;)
You could still turn it into a full hornbow by adding some sinew at this point. But maybe better start from new and glueup horn an boo with a ton of reflex before sinewing - that's what will make the difference in performace to a "normal" bow!
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