Author Topic: Returning to bowyery after 4 years - board bows & ERC aspirations  (Read 830 times)

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Offline Loganic

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Hey yall,

Weird to be back here after four years! But I have returned to bowyery to capture an old dream of mine. I considered making two posts--one for a review of my old bows and another for ERC aspirations-- but I decided to put them both here since the ERC thing isn't much content by itself.

Regarding my old board bows

Four years ago, I made two bows from boards that I am still comfortable shooting. One is an ash flatbow and the other is a hickory longbow (shallow D profile). You can see for yourself below hopefully, but these are by no means top craftsmanship--the tiller is where I suffered the most, mostly because I was afraid to remove wood from the last 1/3rd of each limb. Always felt like I would make the nocks too weak.

However, they have lived to this day! Granted I haven't shot them a ton, but they certainly lasted longer than the ERC bows I'll mention below... I credit their length, unexcessive draw weight and resilient materials for this. The ash flatbow is the ugly one--the lower limb is horrifiying--but I feel no real fear of it breaking since I don't like it so much  ;)  I still have a residual pride for the hickory longbow, but it bends too much in the middle for its own good.

The Beginner Bowyer's Bible (Vol. 1 I believe) has some great information on board bows if you want to get started. Definitely way quicker and easier for us cityfolk.

Regarding my ERC aspirations

In short, I love the English Longbow and love woods with major heartwood/sapwood distinction, but I'm fighting an uphill battle living in the desert (-S

Only ERC has that lovely heartwood/sapwood distinction at my local lumber store. Thus I have tried and failed with three ERC-heartwood hickory-backed bows. Normally get them working beautifully for 50-100 shots and then they explode (--) But I blame myself for this, and with four more years of maturity now inside me, Ima carefully make another ERC bow out of a board and see how that goes. Attempt number four! Today I picked up six new ERC boards and read up on ERC from past posts.

I think the past failures were mostly tiller issues, each bow having much too much bend in the middle and not enough in the tips--the same issue as the Hickory longbow mentioned above. It was just too much for that poor heartwood to handle.

For the first few attempts. I think I'm gonna try making an ERC bow that's mostly sapwood. I hear the sapwood is a bit less fragile and I don't mind only having the creamy white at first. I'll work my way to something prettier once I've gotten an ERC that will survive more than a hundred shots. Also gives me a chance to practice tiller on a bow that won't break my heart when it explodes :-[

Here are some pictures of ye olde bows. I don't remember what the ERC bow pulled, but the Ash flatbow pulls around 30#, Hickory longbow about 40#. Will have to double-check that tomorrow.

Cheers everybody!  ;D


Offline superdav95

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Re: Returning to bowyery after 4 years - board bows & ERC aspirations
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2023, 11:20:22 pm »
I think it’s great that you came back to building bows.  There is something incredibly rewarding and fulfilling in it.  Good to see younger folks interested in building primitive bows.  Welcome back. 
Sticks and stones and other poky stabby things.

superdav95@gmail.com

Offline bjrogg

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Re: Returning to bowyery after 4 years - board bows & ERC aspirations
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2023, 06:40:38 am »
I think it’s great that you came back to building bows.  There is something incredibly rewarding and fulfilling in it.  Good to see younger folks interested in building primitive bows.  Welcome back.


Completely agree with Dave. Hang in there. It is definitely a learning process with evolving skills picked up along the way.

You have a lot of years left to perfect them.

Look forward to seeing them develop.

Keep building them and keep posting them

Bjrogg
A hot cup of coffee and a beautiful sunrise

Offline George Tsoukalas

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    • Traditional and Primitive Archers
Re: Returning to bowyery after 4 years - board bows & ERC aspirations
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2023, 11:25:11 am »
Welcome back and above all enjoy!
My site has info.
http://traditionalarchery101.com
Jawge
Set Happens!
If you ain't breakin' you ain't makin!

Offline Loganic

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Re: Returning to bowyery after 4 years - board bows & ERC aspirations
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2023, 12:29:31 pm »
Thanks for the encouragement yall! Happy to be back ;D