New Ideas for Bamboo Bow

[chuck]

Has anyone got any ideas how to build a all bamboo long bow and how would yall tiller it. I have several designs glued up but I want a simply design thats farily simply to make. You see a friend of mine wants me to build his son a all bamboo bow so he can give it to him for a Christmas present. This is a special bow and it means alot to build this one right for him. His son is very sick and this will mean alot to him and I don't want to mess it up. It needs to be approx #45 . I have several different ways to tiller it but want some more ideas. I have been wanting to post on here you guys are some great bow builders. Thanks Chuck

[chuck]

Well I have had a lot of views looking at this post. I didn't get any replys. Well today I started tillering the bamboo boo and I traped it on the belly and back to nearly 1/2 the width of the limb. I still couldn't get a bend in the limbs. I then started tillering the belly like I did on the previous bow. It started to come around and now it's down to where I can get a short brace string on it. Will work on it some more tomorrow. I keep yall posted.Chuck

[bootboy]

just make a bamboo bundle bow.
 you can taper it so to speak by the adding or subtracting of length. Length of the smaller bamboopeices that you tie on that is.

[Coo-wah-chobee]

Do you have a long enough piece of plain boo for youre purposes ?-bob

[jpitts]

Chuck,
How'd it turn out? Any pics?

[gregLewis]

Chuck-

How did your all bamboo bow turn out? I'm thinking about trying to build one, and would appreciate your advice.

Thanks

Greg

[stickbender]

     I don't know how to build one, but Fred Bear killed an African Elephant with a hundred pound all bamboo bow, and a six foot arrow.  So an all bamboo bow is not a fantasy.  I have no idea if correct or not, but I would just get as thick a piece of Bamboo, and shape it to the shape you want, and then take succeeding pieces, and sand and shape and laminate them to the thickness you want, or laminate them, and then shape them, and then shape the bow in a form, then scrape the belly, and tiller it as you would a wood bow.  And that is just purly guessing.  I have absolutely no experience or practical knowledge in that area.
Good luck, and let us know how it turned out.  Oh yeah, and lots of pictures.

                                                                                      Wayne

[Kegan]

     I don't know how to build one, but Fred Bear killed an African Elephant with a hundred pound all bamboo bow, and a six foot arrow.  So an all bamboo bow is not a fantasy.  I have no idea if correct or not, but I would just get as thick a piece of Bamboo, and shape it to the shape you want, and then take succeeding pieces, and sand and shape and laminate them to the thickness you want, or laminate them, and then shape them, and then shape the bow in a form, then scrape the belly, and tiller it as you would a wood bow.  And that is just purly guessing.  I have absolutely no experience or practical knowledge in that area.
Good luck, and let us know how it turned out.  Oh yeah, and lots of pictures.

                                                                                      Wayne

I thought it was Hill who used the bamboo longbow, pulling 115#. I thought Fred Bear used one of his fiberglass laminated recruves?

[stickbender]

     Keegan, I could be wrong, it sure wouldn't be the first time.  I rembember reading it, in either outdoor life, or field and stream.  I was pretty sure it was Fred Bear, and it was a bamboo bow.  But it was a long time ago, when I was about 14 or so.  And like I said, I could be wrong.  But anyway, an elephant was killed with one.  Hill might have repeated what Fred did or vice versa.

                                                                   Actually I have never been wrong, except once, and I only thought I was wrong, but I was actually right!

                                                                     Wayne

[AndrewS]

Vison Minor builds a lot of bows with a bamboo backing and a bamboo facing on the belly. I think this bows are built in the way modern glasfiber bows were build.

[Arthur Herrmann]

Howard Hill has been acknowledged as the first white man to kill an elephant with a bow without using poison or explosive tips.

He killed three.

[shikari]

Have you tried a Bhutanese bow,they are all bamboo,extremely simple and smooth,you could have one ready in an hour,you could also try the short bow used by the naga's of India,simply two pieces of bamboo glued together with the nodes alternating,the belly slat is usually smoked bamboo to temper it sort to say.The Bhutanese bow is just two pieces of bamboo overlapping in the centre to form the handle,as simple as they are to make,these bows can easily go 50#.

[GlassKnapper]

I have one that i started making a few months ago, but i never finished it. I started out with a piece of bamboo with a diameter of about four inches, i cut a piece out of the wall about 2 1/2 inches across and like someone else said i started fitting subsequently smaller pices into the larger piece. I tried to tiller the pieces individually since one end is thicker thant the other being made of bamboo. By the time I quit working on it i had a bow that was 3 layers thick, and almost six feet long with what must have been a 15# pull. I know absolutely almost nothing of how to make bows. Hhaha hope that helps

[Mike Routen]

Chuck,

I don't know if this is what you have in mind, but I've met a local bowyer that was building all-boo bows.  He was using vertical-laminate flooring as the belly and backing it with regular bamboo backing.

The vertical laminate flooring has the bamboo stacked on its side when looking at the belly of the bow.  These were glued up with about 5 inches of reflex and ended up almost neutral once the belly had taken its set.  These bows had amazingly low mass weight and were supposed to be great performers.

The bows were made more in the flatbow design than the english longbow, so I don't know if this is what you are looking for or not.  If you are interested, I can dig out the templates that he gave me and let you know what the dimensions are.

Good luck with this project.

Mike

[mullet]

 Robustus on this site( James Parker), taught Vinson how to make bows and makes some fine, fast , all bamboo bows.PM James.